SITES™ Public Comment Period Extended to November 26



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The leadership team has extended the deadline to submit comments on the Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) proposed 2013 credits to Monday at 5:00 p.m. CST, November 26, 2012. SITES is the most comprehensive set of voluntary, national guidelines ever developed for sustainable landscapes. The proposed revisions are based on experience gained through the two-year pilot program, which involved 150 projects, 11 of which have been certified so far.

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The proposed 2013 credits will serve as the basis for transitioning SITES to open enrollment in mid-2013. This update is available for comment and download at www.sustainablesites.org.

All industry professionals and interested parties are urged to participate during this public comment period to ensure the quality and applicability of the revised guidelines. Responses will inform the SITES 2013 Reference Guide, which will be released in mid-2013.

The Sustainable Sites Initiative is a partnership between the ASLA, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden to create a system to evaluate sustainable landscape design, construction and maintenance. The U.S. Green Building Council is a stakeholder in the initiative and anticipates incorporating SITES metrics into future versions of the LEED^® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System.

Nancy C. Somerville, Hon. ASLA
Executive Vice President/CEO
American Society of Landscape Architects

Comments

Gordon@mannandtrees.com November 26, 2012 1:10 AM

The SITES guidelines provide a much more robust inclusion of landscape elements than LEED, it is a great start. However, we don't solve the sustainable problems by retaining some trees on a construction site or planting trees with/after development. We solve the problems by growing trees. Therefore, a long term maintenance plan is necessary to guide the long term growth of trees on a site. This is in the latest ANSI A300 Part 5 standards for construction management of trees and woody plants. It is so important that either additional credit should be given to the inclusion of the long term plan, or stronger, the landscape plans should not receive any credit without some confidence that it will exist beyond the installation or construction dates. This confidence can be provided in a long term maintenance plan. Another important element is that we retain or conserve the correct trees that have a chance of long term survival. Before the tree selection is made for retention, the trees on the site are surveyed and the best opportunities for longer term growth are selected, and based on the viability of the trees, the design is created with the needs of the trees as a condition of the design. Saving trees in poor health or saying we are saving trees when we may injure them during the development is not contributing to sustainability. Lastly, most new landscapes are over-planted in order to look good and full with the young establishing plants. There has to be a spacing and maintenance plan to guide the long term thinning and selecting of the best plants to retain on the site for the long term. As plants grow and are removed, irrigation may need to be adjusted. Again, designs without these long term care adjustments have less chance of being sustainable. This is so important, plans without long term maintenance or spacing should be reduced in credit, or not counted for credit.