Category: environmental and land use law

brownfields: a natural for the sustainable city

Posted by – March 26, 2010

As the sustainability movement matures, preexisting initiatives such as brownfield redevelopment are being integrated and repackaged. Here is our summary article from Planning and Environmental Law which still contains the basic rules of the road for redevelopment of land contaminated by previous use.


urbanist parking dilemmas, and the dawn of the “node wars”

Posted by – January 18, 2010

Just posted in seattlepi.com, a contextual take on recent news:


learning about due diligence and managing redevelopment risk

Posted by – January 12, 2010

How to proceed with due diligence for redevelopment during challenging economic times?

Here is a Powerpoint presented on January 7, 2010 in Vail, Colorado at the Law Education Institute/Colorado Bar Association National CLE Conference which outlines basic approaches and issues:


wind power, indigenous culture and another Sound

Posted by – January 9, 2010

News from Massachusetts and a proposed wind farm’s impact upon visual access to Nantucket Sound shows the role of the Federal government in balancing energy needs against the rights of two Native American tribes.

The dynamic of “traditional cultural property” consultation under the National Historic Preservation Act is not new, and often occurs with transportation infrastructure (including locally in the context of environmental review for initial light rail link ten years ago).

Nonetheless, Abby Goodnough’s article below summarizes the dilemma in particularly modern terms for the Obama administration: Should Nantucket Sound be listed on the National Register of Historic Places to honor the cultural traditions of “the people of the first light”? If so, what impact would such listing have on an already controversial Cape Wind project?