Land Use Litigation and Mediation
Looking for an attorney with a broad range of experience and knowledge in land use law? Carol has spent the last 27 years handling land use administrative actions before city councils, hearing examiners, the Growth Management Hearings Boards, the Shoreline Hearings Board, Pollution Control Hearings Board, as well as land use litigation in the Washington and federal courts. During that time, Carol has represented clients in over 150 lawsuits involving appeals of local land use decisions, most involving substantial damage claims. Many of these land use lawsuits were successfully settled without payment of monetary consideration on either side. Read Carol’s article, “Settling Land Use Litigation: Swords into Ploughshares,” posted on this site.
Municipal Law
In the past 27 years, Carol has served as the city/town attorney or assistant city attorney for over 20 cities. Carol has also provided services as special legal counsel to over 40 other cities and towns throughout Washington. These services involved the provision of legal opinions, pre-litigation advice and drafting of ordinances on every possible municipal issues, such as public works contracting, code enforcement, budgets, franchises, street use, storm water regulation, property purchases, leasing, etc. Read Carol’s article on Code Enforcement posted on this site.
Land Use and Zoning
Our land use and zoning legal services encompass the interpretation of development regulations to the defense of municipalities and municipal officers in multi-million dollar damage lawsuits based on land use decision-making. We can provide guidance on the manner in which project permits must be processed to ensure issuance of a timely final decision, assist planners with complicated legal issues relating to development regulations, advise the city council during quasi-judicial land use hearings and draft the findings of fact and conclusions on a land use decision to sustain a legal challenge. Carol has written many articles to assist municipalities attempting to navigate these issues, and is available to provide individualized land use training to planning commissions and city councils. Read Carol’s article on development agreements and the adoption of moratoria/interim zoning ordinances posted on this site.
Model Development Code Service
Is your development code kept up-to-date with the latest legislative activity and case law? With our Model Code Service, we can draft the necessary ordinances to allow your city to keep its unique chapters (e.g., zoning districts and permitted uses), and also provide you with standardized permit processing language (as required by state law). Our model code is kept current with the ever-changing laws in Washington and is drafted to be easy to understand/implement by the staff, city officials and the public. Many chapters are also annotated with case law and statutory references. Once adopted, you can also keep your code up-to-date by subscribing to a service that will provide model ordinances for adoption, when changes are made necessary by the courts and the legislature. Take a look at the Model Development Code section on this site for more information and get a cost estimate. Read samples of Carol’s model codes posted on this site.