Prevent Neighborhood Opposition & Win Zoning Approval for Your Development, Even if it is a LULU

Imagine applying the legal and planning skills that have won zoning approval for NIMBYs or LULUs (Locally Unwanted Land Uses) to your development project, large or small. Imagine winning neighborhood support and preventing neighborhood opposition from even getting started.

That’s what Planning/Communications has been doing for nearly 30 years. We have successfully represented development proposals that typically generate vociferous neighborhood opposition, including a drive-in bank in a high–class suburb’s residential neighborhood; multiple–family housing in a hostile single–family community; and countless group homes, recovery communities, and halfway houses for people with disabilities — the sort of proposals that tend to stir up prospective neighbors.

We know how to make a worthy development proposal desirable to the prospective neighbors. We have successfully approached the surrounding community at an early stage and not only prevented substantial neighborhood opposition from forming, but garnered substantial neighborhood support for developments that ordinarily face significant opposition. We can help you fine–tune your development proposal to win neighborhood support —reducing the length of time needed to win zoning approval and avoid any need to go to court.

Whether you seek to build a large development, affordable housing for households with modest incomes, or a community residence for people with disabilities, we have the unique skills and extensive experience to provide the legal representation or expert witnessing you need to get a fair hearing from the city and from the neighbors — and a decision based on the facts presented, not myths and misconceptions.

Imagine having these skills working on the side of your proposal, be it for a single lot or a major development. Think of the time and money you’ll save, not to mention the headaches and ulcers you’ll avoid. For more, click here.

The Affordable Housing Authority

Since 1973, our staff has worked to introduce policies and practices that preserve housing affordable to people of modest incomes without and with minimal government subsidy. We have provided expert testimony to both houses of the United States Congress, state legislatures, and local governments. We have conducted workshops, seminars, and national conference sessions on real solutions to provide affordable housing, most recently for the University of Wisconsin in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and New Mexico and the 2004 national conference of the American Planning Association.

We’ve even designed a “game” that puts public officials in the shoes of people with modest incomes who work in their communities, but cannot afford to live in them. By the end of the game, public officials openly admit that they have an affordable housing problem that they need to solve.

Free Affordable Housing Resources
The two key strategies for overcoming the affordable housing crisis are keeping existing housing affordable to people of modest incomes and increasing the supply of housing — ownership and rental — that people of modest incomes can afford. The primary tools to achieve these goals are low–equity cooperatives and mutual housing associations, and inclusionary zoning.

Click here to view or download a growing array of resources on effective solutions for affordable housing, including inclusionary zoning, low–equity cooperatives, mutual housing associations, and other tools that work. Click here for news about a California appellate court decision upholding the inclusionary zoning ordinance in Napa, California.

And get the candid scoop on how condominium conversions helped created today’s affordable housing crisis by eliminating much of the nation’s supply of profitable private sector rental housing affordable to people of modest means.

We are nationally known for our pioneering work beginning in 1974 to bring rationality to the zoning for “community residences” for people with disabilities: group homes, halfway houses, and recovery communities.

We have conducted scientific research to determine whether or not community residences have any effect on property values — and have put together a short annotated bibliography of other reliable, scientific studies as well which you can download or view by clicking here. No matter which research technique they use, the studies have found that community residences that are licensed and not clustered on a block have absolutely no impact on property values, neighborhood safety, or community character.

We have helped scores of communities write zoning regulations for community residences that provide the maximum rational and legal regulation permissible under the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988. We have represented numerous providers before local zoning boards.

We have also served as expert witnesses before zoning boards and in both federal and state court in significant group home cases. We have conducted workshops, seminars, and national conference sessions on zoning for community residences from Alaska to New York, even educating representatives from the attorneys general offices from all 50 states.

And we have written the model zoning for community residences for the American Bar Association and the American Planning Association. Click here for our principal’s experience with zoning for group homes and other community residences.

Planning, Zoning, and Land Use Law

Our professional city planner and attorney offers full planning and zoning services to municipalities, counties, states, and developers. Our staff includes Daniel Lauber, President of the American Institute of Certified Planners (2002–2005, 1992–1994) and President of the American Planning Association (1985–1986). Click “Contact Us” to request additional information. Click here for Daniel’s full “kitchen–sink” resume.

Click here to contact Planning/Communications.