On March 19th, the California Architects Board met in San Diego and, among other items on their extensive agenda, took up the issue of the Strategic Plan for 2009.  In a previous meeting, the issue of possibly eliminating the Residential Exemption was put on the Strategic Plan for 2009 by the President of the CAB and supported by a number of members.  As a result of that meeting, California Society president Richard Emigh wrote a letter to the CAB expressing our concern that this issue was being raised and outlining the consequences of such a move on our profession.
 
Consequently, the CAB agreed to include a discussion of that issue on their agenda for their March meeting.  They invited representatives of the unlicensed design community to attend the meeting and to give testimony on the issue.  Attending the meeting on behalf of AIBD were society president, Richard Emigh (Capitola,) past society and past national president Jeffrey Rice AIBD (Oakland,) society board member Caroline Loisis (San Diego) and two long term members, Mary Coolman AIBD (Temple City) and Richard Wilken, FAIBD , AIA (Pacific Palisades.)  Richard Wilken was one of the AIBD members who actually negotiated the wording of the current Residential Exemption.
 
Also in attendance were Douglas Stead, CID (San Marcos) Executive Vice President of the California Council for Interior Design Certification and Carman Olsson-Rigdon ASID, CID (Los Angeles/San Diego) president of the California Legislative Coalition for Interior Design.  There were several additional people who came to the meeting who were not all members of AIBD but who were practicing residential designers and one local design-build contractor who also spoke to the issues.  A representative of the Department of Consumer Affairs came to observe the discussion and Kurt Cooknick, Director of Regulation and Practice of the AIA California Council, was there to represent their interests.  And finally, an architect and professor of architecture (name unknown to us)  from the New School of Architecture in San Diego came to the meeting to give testimony against the practice of residential design by unlicensed individuals.
 
CAB president Jon Alan Baker, FAIA, called the meeting to order and after conducting the business sections of the agenda, offered to move the discussion of eliminating the residential exemption to the top of the agenda so that the attendees would not have to stay for the entire meeting.  Richard Emigh started off by stating the points he had made in his letter, that the issue of removing the exemptions were highly disturbing and that there was no real evidence that justified such a position.  He pointed out that given the large numbers of design professionals who would be affected by the removal of the exemptions, if the CAB continues to pursue this stated goal, we would have no choice but to fight for our livelihoods wherever possible.  Mr. Rice spoke to long tradition of residential design in this state and the professionalism of unlicensed residential design.  He also pointed out that residential exemptions exist throughout the globe and in most states of the US.  Richard Wilken spoke about how the existing exemption came to be and how it was negotiated with the architecture board.
 
Doug Stead of the CCIDC spoke in support of not removing the exemptions and suggested that what was really needed was for the board of architects to take the time to get to know the profession of residential design regardless of how it was practiced - either by building designers, interior designers or kitchen and bath designers.  Mary Coolman and the design-build contractor also spoke against the elimination, and Mr. Cooknick of the AIA spoke in strong support of not eliminating the exemptions.  He stated that there was no clear evidence that would support removing the exemptions.  And finally the professor of architecture stated that he thought it was inappropriate for anyone, not licensed, to practice any form of design work as they were not qualified to do so unless they had been property trained and tested.
 
After the public comment period, President Baker brought the discussion back to the board.  One member agreed that it was inappropriate for anyone, not licensed, to practice any kind of design work and wanted to study how to eliminate the exemptions.  A second member stated that there were far too many people who were practicing architecture without a license.  The first member then asked the Executive Director of CAB, Douglas McCauley, how many infringements did he think there were against unlicensed individuals, compared to licensed individuals.  Mr. McCauley responded that if based solely on those who were cited for inappropriate advertising or misusing the word architect, it was close to 50 to 60 percent. However, if it was for complaints against unlicensed individuals from clients for the work they had done, then the number was closer to 10%.
 
A fourth member (chair of the Regulation and Enforcement Committee) then made a motion to remove the issue entirely from the Strategic Plan stating that there was simply no need for this issue to be on the Strategic Plan and that the money could be better spent on enforcement work.  The motion was seconded by the Secretary of the CAB, Marilyn Lyon.  After some heated debate, the vote was four members to remove the issue and three to keep it.  The CAB has rules that state when there are less than nine members present, it takes five votes to approve a motion, so the motion failed.  Shortly thereafter, a staff member proposed to change the writing of the Strategic Plan to remove what many considered offensive and aggressive language.  The original language was: "Explore the feasibility of eliminating the license exemption for residential designers and make a recommendation."   A motion to change the wording and intent was made by a staff member and it was passed unanimously by the board.  Although the exact wording had not been included in the minutes in time for the publication of this newsletter, the
intent of the change was to initiate a dialogue with Residential Designers, Interior Designers and other stakeholders to determine the validity of the residential exemptions
 
The meeting was then adjourned for lunch and a few of our members stayed to break bread with the board and its staff.