The Firm’s expertise encompasses all facets of redevelopment and housing law: from general legal counseling and project guidance, transactional advocacy and negotiation, to bare-knuckles litigation. The Firm’s attorneys have the skills and experience to provide a full range of redevelopment and housing services.
The Firm’s attorneys have successfully negotiated numerous disposition and development agreements (“DDAs”), owner participation agreements (“OPAs”), housing agreements, and development agreements. In addition, the Firm’s redevelopment attorneys add an extra level of understanding and expertise due to their unique experience with tax increment financing, bonds, and other elements of redevelopment finance.
This experience carries over into other aspects of housing and redevelopment advocacy, as well as to general real estate negotiations. In this respect, the Firm’s attorneys have guided their public agency clients through the intricate process of adoption and amendment of redevelopment plans, while successfully negotiating hundreds of redevelopment and housing-related grants, loans, purchase-sale agreements, leases, easement agreements, licenses, CC&Rs, and other construction, housing, and development contracts.
On the litigation side, the Firm’s attorneys have successfully defended redevelopment agencies in challenges to adopting and amending redevelopment plans, the awarding of OPAs and DDAs to rival developers, complying with environmental requirements (such as compliance with CEQA), and complying with the terms of contracts and redevelopment agreements.
The Firm also litigates the complex aspects of environmental remediation common in many redevelopment and public housing projects, including: abatement of hazardous materials at redevelopment sites, cost-recovery (under CERCLA, the Polanco Act, and other statutes), and public nuisance claims arising from contaminated properties planned for redevelopment.
