I am Becca Ruiz and I serve as Project Manager for VHB, an engineering, landscape architecture, environmental services, and planning firm with four offices and more than 100 employees in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We provide landscape architecture services along the East Coast from Maine to Florida—in all states, this profession is regulated by the state. I work side by side with landscape architects every day in designing infrastructure projects.
I am urging the Board to continue licensure for Landscape Architects in Virginia for the following reasons:
Protection of Public Health, Safety, and Welfare
Fair Competition and Economic Impact
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 co