Zoning, Planning and Land Use
Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP has a well-established and well-respected Zoning, Planning and Land Use Practice Group. For more than a decade, our practice group attorneys have been at the forefront of land use, zoning, permitting, environmental, and other regulatory issues in municipal and county jurisdictions within Georgia and throughout the Southeast.
Our Clients and Experience
We primarily represent residential, commercial and industrial developers, property owners, landlords, lenders, building industry associations, and other interested parties in governmental administrative processes and litigation that often arises from those processes. We assist our clients with various land use issues ranging from applications for re-zonings, variances, special use permits, building permits, subdivision and plat approvals, and other land use approvals and entitlements. The attorneys in our practice group have handled extensive land use and eminent domain litigation, as well as Telecommunications Act, Fair Housing Act, and Clean Water Act cases in federal court.
Our practice group attorneys have more than 50 years of combined land planning and real estate litigation experience. Their victories before governmental bodies and in court are numerous. Our land use practice is unique in that we truly are able to resolve land use issues in any forum. Our attorneys have developed close relationships over many years with local land use planning staffs, development authorities, elected officials, judges and other governmental bodies and individuals involved in the planning and development process. We provide lobbying services and other assistance in securing local government contracts and favorable ordinance/legislation modification or adoption.
Consistent with our overall philosophy, the lawyers in our practice group work with governmental authorities to obtain approvals for our clients’ positions, but if these approvals cannot be obtained, then these attorneys aggressively represent clients in obtaining judicial review and approval.
Our Approach
While all of our litigators are proud of courtroom victories, we recognize that we can often attain the greatest benefits for our clients by successfully avoiding the dispute entirely or by effectively resolving the dispute at the earliest possible stage. In this regard, we provide zoning feasibility studies and preventative maintenance assessments regarding issues that might arise during the development process. Our philosophy: When aggressive litigation through trial is required, we deliver; but we always keep the businessperson’s ultimate goal to timely and cost effectively resolve disputes in the forefront.
Practically speaking, this means that, at the outset of all cases, we are experienced with implementing an early case evaluation for each matter. When a client comes to us for assistance, we identify the key legal and factual issues that require investigation. We then focus our efforts on these key issues and develop a strategy to produce the desired results with a minimum expenditure of our client’s time and money; we do this while maintaining the flexibility to modify our strategy as circumstances may require.
