Overview
Land use requires both legal experience and political acumen. Combining law with strategic insight and strong government relations, we focus on obtaining entitlements, permits or approvals and guiding your projects to successful completion.
Confident counsel
Developing property is about getting projects completed in time and on budget. This often involves navigating your way through a web of zoning restrictions and land use regulations. And it can mean dealing with everything from sustainability and environmental concerns to transportation issues or local opposition.
Ground control
Completing ambitious projects successfully involves a mixture of legal skill, sound business judgment and political acumen.
We provide a uniquely integrated offer, combining legal experience with strategy and strong government connections. Our team is behind some of the largest and most complex deals in the market—obtaining entitlements, permits or approvals, conducting environmental reviews and managing the compliance process. We’re best known for our work in coastal development, environmental impact analysis, planning and zoning issues and engaging with local, state and federal law and decisionmakers.
The breadth of our technical practice, diverse client base and integration with government allow us to react on behalf of our clients in any jurisdiction, clearing the path for developments that truly shape communities.
With a respected presence in California and beyond, our team is at the forefront of evolving land use regulation and practice. We work on cutting-edge issues from sustainable development and transportation to vested rights, initiatives and referenda. Our proven strengths in renewable energy and resourcing projects not only help our clients but also protect and maximize the value of our land and natural resources.
Who we work with
We work with anyone developing land, particularly people and companies with complex development goals and land use issues.
Our land use clients include:
- Hotels, resorts and golf courses
- Urban infill and mixed-use projects
- Multifamily developments
- Master-planned communities
- Entertainment venues
- Retail centers
- Commercial and industrial centers
- Public utilities
- Social infrastructure assets, such as hospitals and prisons
- Transit and rail facilities
- Wineries and vineyards
- Educational institutions
What we do
We help clients achieve their development objectives and work with them to resolve the following issues:
- General plans, specific plans and zoning approvals
- Entitlement applications and administrative hearings
- CEQA and NEPA compliance and litigation
- Infrastructure financing and permitting
- Coastal Act compliance
- Due diligence
- Affordable housing
- Climate change
- Eminent domain and condemnation
- Endangered species
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- Inverse condemnation
- Redevelopment
- School mitigation and financing
- Water quality
- Wetland permitting
Experience
Solid Experience—From the Ground Up
- Athens Services with the entitlements and environmental review for its Materials Recovery Facility and Transfer Station project in the city of Irwindale, California.
- CapRock Partners, a Southern California-based commercial and industrial development company, in obtaining entitlements for four industrial developments in the Inland Empire area of Southern California.
- Jay Paul Company in virtually every one of its acquisitions, developments and financings, totaling billions of dollars of transactions, with our land use team providing key land permitting guidance.
- Lyon Living and Synergy Oil & Gas, LLC in obtaining entitlements to develop two new oil production sites and a 75-acre wetlands mitigation bank in the city of Long Beach, California.
- Mount Saint Mary’s University in its first Brentwood campus development project in more than three decades.
- Poseidon Water in obtaining approval from the California Coastal Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop one of the Western Hemisphere’s largest seawater desalination plants, which is to be located in Huntington Beach, California.
- Toll Brothers Apartment Living to entitle a mixed-use project in the heart of the city of Santa Ana on property formerly used as the corporate headquarters for First American Title Company.
- Trumark Companies, a land developer that turns underutilized land into desirable residential and mixed-use communities, in securing land use entitlements for Rancho Miramonte, a residential community in the former Chino dairylands.
Related Practices
Infrastructure
Real Estate Litigation
Climate Change and Clean Energy
Hospitality and Leisure
Real Estate Transactions and Finance
Government and Regulatory
Environment
Manatt Energy and Environment
Manatt Real Estate
Select Clients
Athens Services
CapRock Partners
Jay Paul Company
Lyon Living/Synergy Oil & Gas, LLC
Mount Saint Mary’s University
Poseidon Water LLC
Toll Brothers Apartment Living
Trumark Companies
