I am writing in support of continued regulation of landscape architecture by professional licencsure. I have recently moved to the state from upstate New York and opened a business here. If landscape architecture licensure is not preserved I could be forced to relocate my business back to New York or to Pennsylvania. Licensure is the best currently known and applicable method to help ensure professional competence as it relates to the public health, welfare, and safety, and to ensure technical competence regarding environmental principles, habitat quality, landscape performance. I work a great deal with local communities, public land managers, state and federal regulatory bodies, and infrastructure agencies including the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Maryland Port Administration. In my duties I work on infrastructure projects that are critical for navigation and flood control as well as protecting and improving public and ecosystem health. These areas are only becoming more complex and necessary in the face of economic and environmental disasters, and ongoing threats to public health which can be partially ameliorated through public landscape design. Many approaches and ideas are needed to face down these threats to our communities, and landscape architecture is a critical one. Removing licensure from the field at this time would be a difficult hurdle to overcome, and could rob communities of the professional tools needed to improve human and environmental health.

I work with and lead teams of engineers, ecologists, and architects on some projects, and I partner with them as a collaborator or subconsultant on others. All of this work would be negatively impacted by the loss of licensure. Licensure of landscape architects is necessary to keep the profession on an equal footing with its related licensed design professions, architecture and engineering. This equality enables landscape architects to lead projects, form certain business partnerships, and serve as principals in multidisciplinary firms. Licensure for one profession, and certification, registration, or no regulation for the other, can cause confusion in the marketplace and may be perceived by the consumer as an endorsement of the skill and competence of one profession over the other. Where the professions overlap, it provides a state-sanctioned advantage for one profession over the other. This destroys the competitive, free market in which design professionals compete. Without licensure, landscape architects will be unfairly disadvantaged in the marketplace. Oftentimes, federal, state, and local contracts require the work to be completed by licensed individuals. Virginia landscape architects would be excluded from federal, state, and local work in Virginia that requires licensure.