Virtual reality offers rapid production of alternative design scenarios and exploration of design options, providing the designer extensive control over elements and experience. Eye tracking in VR provides a means to measure user perception of visual elements objectively and thus, could be useful in the landscape and urban design process. However, there are few studies that showcase an application of eye tracking in 3D for this purpose. This paper provides a case study that implements eye tracking in VR-based design assessment and discusses benefits and challenges of implementation. Benefits include a more structured, discretized design process and greater empirical controls for design assessment. Challenges include the technological implementation and the evaluation process to draw meaningful associations between the data and design decisions. This work will contribute toward future empirical research to explore design process, measure design scenarios and understand the usefulness of novel technologies for evaluating these designs.