10/21/2026
It always amazes me how municipal planning offices provide specific landscape design guidelines for new commercial construction, and then come down hard on a landscape architect who tries to get site plan approval that doesn’t follow them. But once they approve the site plan, they don’t follow up or enforce the landscape plan.
I did a small restaurant new construction project about five years ago. For site plan approval, the county required 12 shade trees, a certain number of shrubs, and a masonry wall to screen the parking lot. The owner pushed back on the trees and the wall, saying the trees would block views of the restaurant during the plan approval phase. The county said he must comply with the landscape manual requirements to get the plans approved and begin construction.
The client didn’t start construction until months later and didn’t notify me so I could provide construction administration; they started and finished without my knowledge. I drove by the restaurant for the first time a couple of weeks ago; the masonry screen wall wasn’t built, no shrubs were planted, and not a single shade tree was planted. Instead of trees, they planted tall, individual ornamental grasses in the lawn and on the parking lot islands. It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen on a project that I was associated with.
When municipalities provide detailed landscape manuals with specific requirements but don’t enforce them, our neighborhoods end up ugly. These transformers in downtown Silver Spring are supposed to be screened. The owner removed the screening shrubs a few years ago, and now the public has to see the green monsters.
