As a licensed Landscape Architect in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I support the state regulation of professional licensure for Landscape Architects. During these recent pandemic times, design, engineering, architecture and a call for more outdoor spaces were deemed essential. Why does the topic of removing the profession of landscape architecture continue to come up? Are engineers and land surveyors that threaten?

Landscape Architects offer an outside the box approach to the "norm" when it comes to site planning and design. Landscape Architects create innovative, inspiration, public and private spaces. Landscape Architects consider the environment, often orchestrate between other disciplines, consider view impacts, pedestrian-friendly routes and consider aesthetics. Landscape Architects also understand hydrology and even play pivotal roles in land-use/zoning projects. These are only some of the examples where landscape architects demonstrate the profession's importance long before assigning plants to a project. Finally, Landscape Architects directly impact the public health, safety and welfare. Similar to structural engineers who play an important role to an architect’s- Landscape Architects provide one needed with civil engineering. Sadly, other professionals who can submit site plans don't always consider these things and think "they can do it all;" In the end, the results show and both the development and community suffer.

As of November 2019, there were 942 licensed landscape architects here in Virginia. I'm sure more today. That should constitute the need to continue regulating and refining the definition of a landscape architect so those professionals (like me) can be properly recognized and together we can prevent those not being licensed to practice independently or even under another licensed-professional discipline.

Ask yourselves, how many of the public spaces or commercial destinations you've enjoyed and admired here in Virginia (as well as elsewhere) were touched and influenced by a landscape architect? I'm sure many of us have and did.

In closing, I offer the following additional points for the legislature to consider in their continued support for the licensed regulation of Landscape Architects:

Protection of Public Health, Safety, and Welfare

• Landscape architects directly impact public health, safety, and welfare. Licensure is the most appropriate form of regulation to ensure that the public is adequately protected.

• Licensure of landscape architects ensures that professionals are qualified by virtue of their education, experience, and examination. 

• Licensure of landscape architects ensures that untrained individuals are prevented from engaging in professional practice that substantially (or significantly) impacts public health, safety and welfare. Licensed landscape architects fulfill educational training and examination requirements that prepare professionals to protect the public from both physical and monetary harm.

• Landscape architects are called upon for complex services that require highly technical skills, making it difficult for prospective clients to evaluate the competency of professionals. Licensure as a measure of competence can assist consumers in identifying appropriate professionals for design services.

• The scope of landscape architectural practice includes site plans, plans of development, grading plans, vehicular roadways and pedestrian systems design, stormwater and erosion control plans, and the siting of buildings and structures, all work that localities and federal agencies require to be sealed by licensed professionals. Consequently, the scope of landscape architecture overlaps with other licensed design professionals including architects, engineers, and Class B land surveyors.

Fair Competition and Economic Impact

• Without licensure, landscape architects would likely be prohibited from leading multidisciplinary teams. Currently, landscape architects serve as the prime consultants on projects where they coordinate and administer the services of engineers, architects, and land surveyors.

• 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.

• 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.