Creating authentic and fiscally prudent public policies that reflect the objectives of robust civic life and economic prosperity through sustainability practices can be a complex and challenging endeavor even for the most informed and capable units of local government. Despite the evolving understanding of sustainability in land-use planning, the ability to fully and authentically incorporate such understanding into inspired contemporary planning practice requires a well ordered, practical and systematic approach.

The LEED-Neighborhood Development model offers communities an excellent platform for creating a built environment that works both for today, and tomorrow. The planning process typically involves five steps that are designed to assist a community of stakeholders engage in realistic efforts to renew, restore, and preserve neighborhoods of character, innovation, and possibility.

1. The application of "best practice" analytics, including modeling, to select the optimum locations for LEED-ND projects including consideration of infill and/or retrofit potential, neighborhood assets, connectivity, existing ecosystems, water and wetland conservation, agricultural land conservation, and flood plain avoidance.
2. The utilization of a "charette" model of stakeholder engagement in-order to provide the technical expertise necessary for the various stakeholders to actively participate in the design of the neighborhood development plan.
3. The application of design technology to visually represent the built environment contained in the neighborhood development plan.
4. The development and implementation of strategies designed to entitle one hundred per cent (100%) of the properties in the project neighborhood including the active use of form- based zoning in contrast to historical models of use-based Euclidean zoning.
5. The recruitment, selection, and management of developers to insure that the project proceeds in a manner consistent with the neighborhood development plan.