Hempstead Plains at Nassau Community College Will Test Sustainable Landscape Rating System

(Garden City, N.Y.) The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) announced the selection of the Hempstead Plains Education Center as one of the first landscapes to participate in a new program testing the nation’s first rating system for green landscape design ,construction andm aintenance.

The Education Center will join more than 150 other projects from 34 states as well as from Canada, Iceland and Spain as part of an international pilot project program to evaluate the new SITES rating system for sustainable landscapes, with and without buildings. Sustainable landscapes can clean water, reduce pollution and restore habitats, while providing significant economic and social benefits to land owners and municipalities.

SITES, a partnership of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden, selected Hempstead Plains at Nassau Community College based on its extensive environmentally friendly elements. These sustainable practices include preserving native plant species, recycling topsoil from a nearby construction site, and recycling building materials.

The Hempstead Plains joins the Smithsonian Institution’s African American History & Culture museum, a New Orleans’ project to absorb storm water on the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward flooded during Hurricane Katrina, and other pilot projects that include academic and corporate campuses, public parks with hundreds of acres, transportation corridors and private residences of less than one acre.

The Education Center was designed by RGR Landscape Architecture & Architecture, PLLC and funded in part with a $362,000 grant from the 2006 Nassau County Environmental Bond Act. The 19-acre nature preserve will connect to its past by showcasing plants native to the prairie, creating a visitor center with classrooms powered by alternative energy, and providing trails for visitors to learn about Long Island history and ecology. Like the other pilot projects, the site will test the point system for achieving different levels of site sustainability on a 250-point scale, and the performance benchmarks associated with specific credits within the Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009. The site’s other sustainability features include an environmental biotoilet, solar power, and a grass roof.

SITES will use feedback from this and the other selected projects during the pilot phase, which runs through June 2012, to revise the final rating system and reference guide by early 2013. The U.S. Green Building Council, a stakeholder in the Sustainable Sites Initiative, anticipates incorporating the guidelines and performance benchmarks into future iterations of its LEED® Green Building Rating System™. More information is available at: http://www.sustainablesites.org. For general media queries about SITES, go to: http://www.sustainablesites.org/news/.

About the Sustainable Sites Initiative
The Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) is an interdisciplinary partnership led by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden to transform land development and management practices with the nation’s first voluntary rating system for sustainable landscapes, with or without buildings. As these guidelines become the accepted practices by professionals and nonprofessionals alike, they will transform the ways we design and build on the land, creating landscapes that nourish life for generations to come. For more information, visit www.sustainablesites.org.