Practice Areas: Land Use

Latest News:

Twenty-eight Apartment Communities Refinanced (4/10/2012)

Urban Land Institute Honors Dan Slone and Samantha Connelly (11/29/2011)

view more news

Our land use practice extends far beyond advising clients about local land use regulations and ordinances. From McGuireWoods offices across the country, we advise clients on the zoning, development and environmental aspects of a potential site, and assist clients with real estate acquisition, leasing and/or financing for development projects.

We can provide such geographically and professionally wide-ranging assistance to our clients because our formidable land use team includes 25 attorneys and five professional urban planners with advanced degrees and significant experience in planning, zoning and development.

Our clients benefit from our comprehensive experience in zoning, environmental, administrative, legislative, and government relations matters. Our team-oriented land use practice has allowed us to establish individual relationships with state and local governing bodies, developers, homeowner’s associations, and other civic groups.

We also have an active land use litigation practice, representing clients who challenge local land use decisions as well as local governments in the defense of their land use decisions. In addition, we represent clients in coordination with our government relations team to draft, review and promote or deter proposed state or local legislation that affects our clients.

We frequently handle zoning and development matters for commercial and retail developments such as regional shopping malls. In addition, we have obtained zoning and development approvals for new communities, office and industrial parks, hotels, multi-family and group housing and planned residential and commercial mixed-use developments.

McGuireWoods has also been active in representing business clients and local governments regarding economic development initiatives and urban infill and redevelopment projects. We support this traditional land use practice with a strong litigation team with extensive experience in land use litigation.

Among our recent projects, we have served as legal counsel to a large number of regional malls and shopping centers addressing matters of zoning, site plan approval, parking, leasing and subleasing, and general build out of store facilities. In addition, we have provided legal counsel for various restaurants, banking, and retail uses involving auxiliary zoning approvals, site conversions, expansions and relocations of existing or planned stores and operations.

Representative Work

• Defended a county’s rezoning action concerning the development of a major port on the James River in Virginia for the transshipment of municipal solid waste from barges to a nearby regional landfill. We won this matter at the trial level and are now handling the matter on appeal. This case also included the successful defense of several challenged water permits and challenges to the use of a critical easement.
• Challenging the imposition of unreasonable land use restrictions by a FERC licensee on the developer of a nationally-acclaimed golf course and residential development on a lake in North Carolina. This lawsuit included takings, due process and equal protection claims against the unreasonable restrictions. This aggressive challenge led to a settlement which alleviated the unreasonable development restrictions.
• Protecting a city’s stormwater permit ordinance from a challenge brought by citizens. We represented the city through appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, which upheld the ordinance.
• Challenging the unreasonable and illegal zoning restrictions imposed by a municipality on a power plant in Michigan which uses alternative fuels as its fuel source. We drafted and served a complaint setting forth substantive due process, procedural due process and statutory claims attacking the validity of the new zoning restrictions. In the face of this challenge, the municipality capitulated.
• Challenging, on behalf of a group of farmers, a county’s ban on the land application of biosolids. Several other jurisdictions in Virginia and outside the state have enacted or are considering enacting similar legislation, so this case is being watched closely as a test case.