A recently proposed house bill may affect the future of landscape architecture in Arizona and the Arizona State students studying this.
Arizona House Bill 2613 is designed to deregulate licenses for jobs in Arizona and can potentially drive landscape architecture out of the state if passed. This could cost landscape architecture students potential jobs.
Landscape architecture associate professor Joseph Ewan said the bill is detrimental to the field and can drive people away from ASU, as well as Arizona, when pursuing a career in landscape architecture.
“The bill, as it’s being written, affects licensure for professionals,” Ewan said. “Right now, if you’re pursuing a career in landscape architecture, you need an accredited degree as well as a three-year internship. Passing this bill removes this process and will cause people in the field to relocate to where the value of their field is recognized.”
If landscape architects left Arizona, students would have a hard time getting the experience they need to get their license.
Landscape architecture student Yuri Lechuga-Robles said the bill's passing could force him to leave Arizona.
“I may have to move to get the practical experience I need to be a licensed architect,” he said. “I’d have to move right after finishing my degree, which is tough for me because I have a 10-year-old. She relies on me.”
Lechuga-Robles also said the bill will affect ASU's architecture school.
“If it passed with landscape architects being included, it would diminish the amount of students that would want to come here when pursuing this degree," he said. "I don’t think it would be very beneficial."
Deregulating the licensure may also affect public health. Landscape architects design most public areas and have to take into account a careful and safe design to ensure public safety.
“Landscape architects design everything outside the building,” Craig Coronato, fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, said. “Imagine everything outside the building and roadways. We’re responsible for designing all that. It ranges from properly designing steps to proper irrigation design.”
It’s the smaller details like the ones Coronato described that have field members worried about deregulation.
Lechuga-Robles said the lack of training caused by the deregulation wouldn’t be safe.
“Eliminating licensing may welcome anyone who’s not trained to design,” he said. “Licensure sets the standard and deregulating would water the field down.”
Why the bill was initially proposed still isn’t certain, but Coronato believes keeping the government out of the job market can be a factor.
“I think the state and leadership with government are trying to streamline the field,” Coronato said. “Frankly, I don’t think they understand what it is that landscape architects do.”
Lechuga-Robles has a similar belief.
“I thought it was just for shrinking government,” he said. “Government thinks licensing is bad for business. For other professionals, it might make sense, but for here, it doesn’t.”
Reach the reporter at Ethan.Millman@asu.edu or follow @Millmania1 on Twitter.
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