From brown to green to gold: San Mateo's exemplary Station Park Green

Before:

The same parcel, reconceived as Station Park Green:

A stunning plan for transit-oriented development in San Mateo, California, south of San Francisco, has earned "gold" certification under the LEED for Neighborhood Development program founded by NRDC, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and the US Green Building Council.  You can see before and after images above.  Images tell the tale better than words on this one but, first, let's start with some backstory:

Somewhere between six and seven years ago, my friend Shelley Poticha, then executive director of CNU, and I began kicking around whether we could create some sort of system of standards by which smart growth and new urbanist development could be judged.  We wanted to separate the pretenders from the truly worthy, and add a boost to the worthy by giving them recognition.

We found an early friend in Geoff Anderson, then director of EPA's smart growth office, which was willing to provide seed money.  That gave us the confidence to recruit some others, including Chicago architect Doug Farr, who was active within CNU.  And we began discussing our idea with Nigel Howard at the Green Building Council and two other USGBC leaders, Bill Browning and my NRDC colleague Rob Watson.  Eventually Shelley and I committed our two organizations to recruit USGBC as our administrative partner, and the subsequent three-organization partnership began calling our idea LEED for Neighborhood Development.  Jennifer Henry was soon recruited as our first staff director. 

On the left, a view of the pre-development site from ground level.  On the right, a view from the same vantage point, when the project is completed:

To make a very long story, full of plot twists and turns, very short, LEED-ND opened for business in a pilot program last year.  Some 239 projects around the country are participating.  We are now seeing the first generation of certified plans and projects and, so far, Station Park Green is my favorite.

The development has a number of elements that make it especially smart and green, including that it is on a remediated brownfield, a previously developed but outmoded and contaminated site that required cleanup but no breaking of new ground for its redevelopment.  It had been home to an obsolete K-Mart, a giant paved parking lot, a gas station, and a chain store.  Although utterly uninviting to pedestrians, the site was (and remains) right next to a CalTrans commuter rail station.

When completed, the new 12-acre Station Park Green development will contain approximately 600 homes, 60,000 square feet of retail space, 10,000 square feet of offices, and two acres of park and green space.

Here is a series of images (credit to an excellent presentation from Brian Fitzpatrick of the San Mateo County Transit District) showing how the site was reconceived and is being transformed from an asphalt wasteland into a walkable, green, smart, mixed-use development:

LEED-ND awards points for achievement of various design and performance standards in three basic categories: (1) location and transportation linkages;  (2) neighborhood pattern and design; and (3) green infrastructure and buildings.  While the system's standards have been born of a true collaboration (and, at times, negotiation) among the three partner groups, those three categories also correspond roughly to the three chief areas of expertise in the core constituencies of smart growth, new urbanism, and green building. 

(I must state here that, although NRDC has been the originator among non-industry, environmental/smart-growth groups, we coordinate our participation closely with the Smart Growth America coalition; many groups, notably the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, have been major contributors to the program.)

Station Park Green earned its gold medal by doing well in all three categories:  As mentioned, the location is perfect for smart growth, adjacent to rail transit and on a previously developed site in the midst of other development.  The new development's pattern uses land efficiently while also being highly walkable, diverse in its functions, and contributing badly needed green space to the neighborhood.  And it will incorporate solar orientation, roof gardens and other low-impact stormwater management features, along with green technology that reduces water consumption 30 percent compared to conventional development; at least 40 percent of the development's square footage will qualify for additional certification under LEED's green building rating systems.

The project has been supported by the Greenbelt Alliance, the San Mateo Chamber of Commerce, and the 19th Avenue/Park neighborhood association.  Congratulations are in order to EBL&S Development (Alan Talansky, project leader), SMWM Architecture, and their associates GLS Landscape/Architecture, Arup Engineers, and Raimi + Associates.

The LEED-ND standards have been updated and substantially improved, pursuant to lessons learned in the pilot program, by a committee appointed under the auspices of the three partners.  The revisions are now undergoing peer review by panels of experts and will soon be published for public comment.  We hope that LEED-ND will be fully operational and open to all applicants by late 2009.