Los Angeles Community College District

The Los Angeles Community College District, the largest community college district in the country, passed resolutions in 2001 mandating all of the new buildings funded by its massive Proposition A facilities bond be LEED Silver certified and use renewable energy.

All of the more than 40 new buildings over the nine campus system planned for the next five years will be built to the LEED Silver standard. They will incorporate features to increase building efficiency such as using sunlight to illuminate classrooms, waterless urinals to decrease water use and special roofs designed to keep the building cool. They also will use 15- to 25-percent renewable energy, and will generate at least 10 percent of that energy on site, mostly through solar cells.

Architect's drawing of the new Student Admissions Center at L.A. City College

One of the first projects will be the new Student Admissions Center at Los Angeles City College, designed by architects Amphibian Arc. It is due to start construction this summer and finish next fall.

“This is the largest LEED project in the US, because we're putting up almost 50 of these all in one go,” said Bharat Patel, chief engineer with DMJM/JGM, program managers for all of the new buildings. “There were only 12 LEED-certified buildings in the U.S. at the time when this was passed, so it was a huge impact to the LEED cause. It was the first point where everyone started saying that if LACCD can do it, why can't we do it?”