Does your community require the stamp?

[Bret Ford]

“In humans, the yew generates digestive, nervous, respiratory and cardiovascular disorders which can result in death. Symptoms include excitation, hyperventilation, and tachycardia, followed by deceleration of the heart, hypotension, nausea, stomach pains, cramps, giddinesses, colic, violent diarrhoea, dizzy spells, convulsions, coma and death (L’Herbier Virtuel 1999-2008). The red aril surrounding the seed can be eaten just as it is like delicacy with the proviso of not chewing the seed.”

 

http://www.conifers.org/ta/Taxus_baccata.php

 

IDK about anyone else, but I wouldn’t trust a child to know not to eat the seed within the aril.   

 

[Alan Ray, RLA]

I am registered in Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi.

All three have title and practice laws. In fact all the southern states require registration. Maybe we’re not so backward after all….

 

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

When was the last time you saw a yew in a nursery which had seeds on it?

[Claudia Chalfa]

Brett, that is exactly my point.  You and I know that what we bring to the table for site analysis is really valuable.  Unfortunately most of the other players in the construction realm don’t know that…at least where I live.  I am wondering how widespread this is, and how we can fix it.

[Claudia Chalfa]

Alan, does your municipality require a plan to be stamped by a landscape architect for commercial projects?

[Cecilia Schafler]

Nevada

Henderson, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Boulder Ciry, Clark County

Stamp Required

I think we have worked hard to have the laws and codes enforced and it has made a difference on both the private and public sides.

[Alan Ray, RLA]

Yes, in Nashville any licensed professional such as engineers and architects can stamp plans if they are “competent” in area of landscape design….a very lousy compromise but most are done by LA’s.

Surrounding smaller towns such as Franklin or Hendersonville, specificy that a landscape architect must prepare the landscape plan. Smaller towns are not in the mood to hassel w/ the machinations of the developer’s engineer….

[Claudia Chalfa]

The key phrase here is “if they are competent at landscape design”…the problem I have encountered is that, unfortunately, they aren’t.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

The unfortunate thing is that they define competent as being adequately addressing the written performance standard of an ordinance rather than the many other things that go into what we all consider standards for adequacy.

One would think that if they declare the need to have an LA it would be to adopt the standard that the profession brings with it and take their discretion out of it. I’m in the minority (sorry for using that term, Cara) amongst us that does not believe that our level of sophistication, if you will, is necessary in every project that comes before a regulatory board. But, if you write an ordinance to do so, it makes no sense to nullify it with such language that allows a board that has no understanding of what standard of competency exists for landscape architects to determine if someone else is equally competent.

I do think there are certain zoning districts that should require it and that in some municipalities an LA should be required for projects that pass a certain threshold. However, I don’t want our profession to become a political machine that excludes landscape contractors and landscape designers from doing projects that they are full capable of doing, either. I believe that we are competitive where and when we are needed with or without an agency excluding others.

[Claudia Chalfa]

Maybe in your area stormwater and floodplain conditions aren’t as much of a consideration.  For me, it is really frustrating to try to explain over and over to engineers how to design a rain garden or bioswale.  I had this conversation today with a couple of engineers, in fact.  They don’t want to try new ideas, and still want to pipe everything off site or to storage or a retention pond surrounded by ugly chain link fencing. 

 

While on some level I agree with you that we shouldn’t necessarily be involved in every project, I do think that every new subdivision should have our stamp, as well as any major commercial project that involves floodplain, wetlands, or other sensitive environmental factors. 

 

 

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

We are required to have bioswales/rain gardens/bioretention areas in commercial projects in certain jurisdictions and you are correct that there is a gap between old engineering practices and current requirements. It may be something that is well covered currently in landscape architecture education and maybe also in stormwater management in engineering as well. For most of us who went to school more than a dozen years ago have had to learn this through continuing ed and practice regardless of discipline.

 

We are all seeing the results of various design practices locally and everyone involved in design and regulation are re-educating each other as we all either review projects in the regulatory process, inspection, or presentation. Discussion and application of information based on that discussion either from a greater understanding or by demands of a regulary board  is what drives standards of practice. Adaptation through practice and review is an under appreciated form of education that few seem to realize as a viable way to gain competency. Why sitting in a classroom for two or three years qualifies one to be considered more competent than someone fully involved in doing the design, going through countless regulatory reviews, and inspecting the resuts constantly which ultimately provides the study material for that classroom is dismissed is not logical either.

 

I do not know of anyone coming out of school from any design discipline that is going to be more qualified than anyone from any discipline who has been practicing and adapting to design standards and the demands and discretion of regulatory boards for several years.

 

It is also shameful of a regulatory board to accept sub-par design. Here they simply do not accept it. There is discussion as to what is not acceptable and the hearing is continued. The designer, or more likely the client, learns what he has to do to comply.  Sometimes that means simply doing what they already knew they should do, but sometimes it involves researching and learning something new. Either way, if you do this work all of the time you eventually know what you are doing.

 

I don’t know what goes into subdivisions in other parts of the country, but in my neck of the woods I have designed several subdivisions (I work in a small multidis. office and we all cross over) and not one of them was anything that I would consider as a landscape architect’s discipline. I’m not sure why an LA stamp would apply.

 

I’m not dis’ing our profession. I’m just trying to point out that we tend to have difficulty looking at it from the outside in and get territorial about things that we are not really exclusively qualified to do.

 

I have a strong belief that people who need us do in fact hire us, but there just might be too many of us at the moment. I’d rather work for someone who needs and wants me than someone forced to take me.

[Bret Ford]

The seed isn’t the only part of the plant that is toxic. The point I was making is that not all plants are appropriate or safe for all locations.

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