These have been boom times for companies that rip out lawns and replace them with drought-tolerant landscaping, but now their business might be drying up.
The Metropolitan Water District said Thursday it would no longer offer rebates to entice homeowners to get rid of their lawns because the agency ran out of money much sooner than it expected.
That is bad news for [...] landscape contractor in Los Angeles. Grass removal has become about 40 percent of his business, driven by the rebates.
— scpr.org
As a result of the sudden end of the government incentives, some Los Angeles landscape contractors, that had made turf removal their main business in the past months, began laying off staff. The LA Times reports: "Turf Terminators, which ballooned from a staff of three to more than 450 over the last several months, laid off 30% of its employees and furloughed an additional 40%, the company said Friday in a statement to The Times."
Previously on the topic of California's severe drought:
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7 Comments
How more lawn restrictions could remake the California landscape
Being a big proponent of xeriscaping, I am pretty disappointed by California in many respects...First off, they have systematically ruined the businesses of many established designers in the state through bullshit protectionist legislation that was pushed hard by the ego driven landscape architects...These experts would be handy right now...many designers who had a far greater plant knowledge than most architects and were specialized in residential design were slowly pushed out of business...One whom I heard of had a masters in horticulture and a PH.D in botany and over 20 years experience running a design practice....His business was completely stiffled by the legislative language in the fairly recent practice acts that were snuck through by the fee feeders making it illegal to fully practice landscape design at the capacity that he had for 2 decades...Without an ability to offer "working drawings" business was difficult...Non-reactionist and protectionist bully regulations pushed through by lobbyists...likely unconstitutional as well being that designers were denied substantive due process...Now, without those professionals homeowners must rely on contractors to offer design services...Good luck with that...Landscape architects are above this kind of work for the most part so usually no where to be found...And not nearly enough of them to fulfill the demand anyways...So, in effect consumers are forced to work with design build firms who usually know little to nothing about design...and 9/10 times offer "free design." Yeah that will really help the value of the profession...Good job assholes!
Now that these rebates dried up (no pun intended) homeowners will be looking for ways to xeriscape on the cheap...something that requires a little more knowledge and creativity than the typical contractor can provide...Regulation at its finest...Good job California!
Wow jla-x there is a lot to digest in your post. I'm not sure if your sentiment comes from a larger anti-government sentiment but there are some things in your post that I would like to address.
I recently left my job at a native plant nursery in southern California to go to architecture school so I have a little bit of insight on the incentive programs. The last company I worked for has been in business for 30 years and is not a fly-by-night organization and business had been booming because of incentives. First off the incentives that are/were being offered were not from the state of California. It is/was individual water districts that offered the incentives and each one has/had their own guidelines. The water districts might have received state funds to give out as incentives but they clearly haven't imposed any statewide regulations on the incentive programs.
Of the customers that I helped to cash in on rebates, none had to submit working drawings. They were not dealing with state or local governments but with their local water districts. I was able to get my hands on many planting designs that had been submitted to their water districts and most of them were little more than sketches, a few were even on sketch paper. Most of the really stringent requirements revolved around getting a water district employee to verify the size of their lawn and that there is in fact a living green lawn being removed. I know of one client that was even able to convince her local water board to grant her funding even though she technically didn't qualify.
California is one of the few states that does allow anyone to work as an independent landscape designer without becoming a fully licensed Landscape Architect. I don't know of any recent legislation that has changed that. I left the nursery at the end of May and my parents have an appointment with a landscape designer this week to plan their lawn removal.
Your landscape designer friend might have been put at a disadvantage because not all water districts reimburse for design services, they usually just pay per sqft of lawn being removed. Every unlicensed landscape designer that I know or came in contact with during the incentive programs was actually having to turn away business though. I have even heard a few established landscape designers express displeasure with the flood of newbies that have saturated their once niche market but that is a whole different issue to address.
Given that the state has surpassed its very ambitious goal of cutting water use by 25% in one year I don't see what there is to be disappointed about.
^ California is the only state that I know of that dosent allow LD's to draw CD's for residential...Sure one can draw planting plans all day but that alone cannot sustain a business...people want a full design plans...
Some states like Illinois still allows LDs to design anything that an LA can design...last I checked the apocalypse hasn't happened in Illinois despite the lax regulations...
I can't comment on what other states allow landscape designers to do. I do know plenty of landscape designers that have successful businesses working within the confines of the law here.
I also know that CA is one of the few states that doesn't require an accredited architecture degree to obtain licensure. I left for architecture school because it is difficult and risky to try to obtain 8 years experience to qualify for the exams with so many job applicants with accredited degrees. I think if other states would drop their education requirements the situation in CA might be different.
I would be curious to know if you think the education requirement for licensure in architecture in about 48 states is also a corrupt, protectionist policy of if you value the standards set in your own industry?
Arch Ed = boondoggle
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