Land Use Focus, Northwest Resource Law PLLC

We navigate complex land-use regulations to obtain necessary approvals for our clients’ projects. Our clients include private and public developers, landowners involved in renewable and traditional energy projects, infrastructure construction, timberlands management, commercial development, manufacturing, and industrial facilities.

Represent developer in invalidating sewer district charges as being outside the sewer district’s statutory authority.
Represent the City of Bellevue in contentious litigation with two independent community municipal corporations over control over the City’s concurrency program and congestion management.
Represent the owners of 6,000 acres of land in Kitsap County in Bremerton v. Kitsap County, Port Gamble-Skallalam Tribe v. Kitsap County, and Alpine Evergreen v. Kitsap County before the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board, eventually establishing that their land is not forest land of long-term commercial significance under the Growth Management Act.
Represent Island County before the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board in defending its designation of rural agriculture and rural forest lands.
Represent the plaintiffs in the first case in Washington invalidating zoning based on a regulatory taking.
Represent the property owner in invalidating the down zoning of its property from industrial to agricultural use. Trial court decision was based on regulatory taking; Supreme Court decision was based on vested rights.
Recovered $5.5 million in settlement of regulatory takings cases where King County attempted to preserve property that had long since passed out of agriculture as “agricultural land.”
Represent property owner in preventing condemnation of their property for the proposed Westlake Mall project. Represented numerous property owners before planning departments, planning commissions, and elected officials where their ability to use their property was challenged based on various environmental claims.