The Living Community Challenge (LCC) calls upon planners, developers, policy-makers and community members to rethink how they design, build and plan for community-scale projects, including streets, blocks, neighborhoods, campuses and more. The LCC provides a vision and framework that can lead a community towards the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment.

Early October marked the launch of the Living Community Challenge Standard, Version 1.1, and the companion LCC Handbook, Version 1.1. This 1.1 version is a tweak to the 1.0 Standard that was launched in May 2014.

Alicia Daniels-Uhlig, LCC + Policy Director, shares that “communities pursuing the Living Community Challenge will be pleased to see alignments with the Living Building Challenge version 3.1 such as Petal and Net Zero Energy Certification pathways, registration guidance between the LBC and the LCC programs, and further clarification of the LCC process.”

The evolving Standard and Handbook will continue to support the five communities registered to pursue the LCC, and the over two-dozen communities around the world exploring the feasibility of LCC. Some of the update highlights include:

• Expanded certification options,
• An elaboration on the Vision Plan and Master Plan process

The new Living Community Challenge Handbook explores what types of communities can use the LCC and Imperative-by-Imperative clarifications.

The LCC has seven performance categories (also known as Petals): Place, Water, Energy, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. Noted below are some key changes for each Petal:

• Place: The minimum percent required for food production based on Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in I-02 Urban Agriculture, has been aligned with Living Building Challenge (LBC) version 3.1, which reduced requirements from 80% for communities with a FAR of 0.05% or less, to 50% for communities with a FAR of 0.09% or less. I-04 Human-Powered Living clarifications include mobility plan requirements aligned with LBC version 3.1.
• Health and Happiness: I-10 Resilient Community Connections requirements previously for Transects 5 & 6 now apply to all Transects to ensure that all sensitive infrastructures, such as lift stations, sub-stations, sewage treatment, community centers, schools and the like, are out of the flood plain.
• Materials: Communities can no longer use the Living Future Carbon Exchange to satisfy I-12 as it is no longer in operation due to the complexities of navigating a shifting global market, and there is an Exception that allows surplus renewable energy to satisfy some of the community’s required carbon offsets
• Equity: Existing communities may be exempt from some prescriptive requirements of the I-14 table if they can demonstrate the community is human-scaled, and document that advocacy measures have been conducted in alignment with the intent to create human-scaled rather than automobile-scaled places. Within requirements for I-18 JUST Organizations, the list of firm types that are eligible have been expanded.

Download these resources here. 

Pg. 15 of the 1.1 Standard

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray with Amanda Sturgeon, Denis Hayes and others at the legislation signing of the LBCPP.

On Friday, October 7th, Mayor Ed Murray signed legislation to continue the Living Building Pilot Program until 2025. The updated Living Building program legislation expands on a pilot program started in 2009 and increases the number of buildings that can participate to 20. There are new provisions and adjustments in the legislation that align better with city and state laws, as well as streamline building codes to incentivize developers on adopting regenerative building practices.

The Living Building Pilot Program (LBPP) applies to existing and new construction projects that pursue the Living Building Challenge—the world’s most rigorous sustainable building program. The Living Building Challenge calls for the creation of building projects at all scales that operate as cleanly, beautifully and efficiently as nature’s architecture – projects that generate all of their own energy with renewable resources, that capture and treat all of their water, and operate efficiently with maximum beauty and addressing equity.

The legislation incorporates updates from the LBPP Technical Advisory Group (TAG) that met for over a year to recommend adjustments that maintain the rigor of the program while incentivizing Living Buildings. Incentives including a 15% increase in floor area ratio (FAR) and a height increase incorporating 10’ in zones with height limits of 85’ or less and 20’ in zones with height limits greater than 85’.

Additional changes include updates to the two City requirements for projects that decide to pursue the Petal Certification pathway: energy use must be 75% or less of targets established in the energy code, and potable water cannot be used for non-potable uses. With the new legislation, these incentives are now granted outright for developers participating in the LBPP which provides more certainty for project teams, in lieu of the previous system that allowed similar departures achieved through the design review process.

“The Living Building Pilot Program is an important tool to encourage developers who are transforming our City to construct to the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard – The Living Building Challenge – while meeting important implementation targets outlined in the 2013 Seattle Climate Action Plan,” said Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of the International Living Future Institute.

The new adjustments to the LBPP are important to Seattle as a leader in green building and are critical in meeting the City’s climate action goals. Currently, Seattle has two certified Living Buildings, the Bullitt Center and the Bertschi Living Building Science Wing. As construction skyrockets in Seattle, it is crucial that new and existing buildings adopt regenerative building practices and the Living Building Pilot Program intends to further that.

The City of Cincinnati and the City of Miami Beach have also incorporated the Living Building Challenge into legislation.