By July, the firm had obtained its license to practice landscape architecture in North Carolina In June of 2012 Counts’ firm, Christopher Counts Studio, based out of New York, was registered as a corporation in North Carolina under the name CCSGC, PC. “Once we became aware of this very unusual interpretation, we immediately obtained the proper licensing.” “We were all operating under commonly understood design industry standards,” which do not typically require registration, or licensure, in the earliest stages of design, Counts said. In March of 2012, following a year-long investigation into Counts and the Moore Square project that included the hiring of a private detective, it determined that Counts was, in fact, in violation of the state statutes. The NCBLA reached a different conclusion. That’s the final point of the design process before drawings are approved for construction. The team working on the project is now waiting for a ruling from the NCBLA so they can get back to work.Īlthough North Carolina statutes prohibit any individual or firm without the requisite licensure from practicing their services in the state, the language does not explicitly state whether a license is required for the earliest, master-planning stages of a project, which is what Counts had been hired to create.īoth Counts and the city - as confirmed by Chief Planning and Development Director Mitchell Silver - had interpreted the law to mean that a licensed landscape architect is required only for the construction document phase. The initial legal issues with the question over licensing have since been cleared up, but now a second complaint is delaying work on the Moore Square redesign. In April 2011, more than a year after winning Raleigh’s Moore Square Redesign Contest, Christopher Counts received a surprising piece of news from the North Carolina Board of Landscape Architecture – because neither he nor his firm was licensed in the state, he was to immediately cease and desist any and all work on the project.
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