Builder restricted to structural landscaping (QLD)

There is a line running through landscaping work in Queensland that catches a lot of good operators out. Planting, turf, mulch and garden beds are not building work. A retaining wall is. So is a deck, a pergola, a carport, a gazebo, a prefabricated shed on a slab, and the paving and site preparation that goes with them. Once that work passes $3,300 it needs a QBCC licence held by whoever is contracting for it.

The builder restricted to structural landscaping licence is the class built for exactly that work. QBCC's scope covers preparing, fabricating and erecting carports, decking, fences, gates, gazebos, ornamental structures, pergolas, ponds and water features, and prefabricated sheds including their associated concrete slabs with a floor area of not more than 10m². It also covers retaining walls, artificial landform structures, site preparation and paving for landscaping, irrigation installation, playground equipment and sporting court construction.

QBCC asks for seven units of competency from CPC40120 for this class. Seven, not the full nineteen-unit Certificate IV. What they cover is the contracting half of the job rather than the trade half: work health and safety, construction contracts, estimating, materials procurement, site administration, legal obligations and business finances. Structural landscaping jobs live or die on the quote and the contract, and this is the half of the trade that formal training tends to skip.

Worth knowing before you enrol. These same seven units are also the technical qualification for the QBCC builder restricted to kitchen, bathroom and laundry licence. That is one course and one Statement of Attainment covering two separate licence classes, and it is yours to point at whichever one fits the work. Landscapers who also pick up bathroom and kitchen jobs get both for the price of one course. Our kitchen, bathroom and laundry page sets out what that second class allows.