Administrative appeals ask a court or other reviewing body to overturn, alter, or delay the legal effect of an underlying administrative agency decision. Appealed decisions may include those taken from a local zoning or planning authority decision, the decision of a state environmental agency on a permit application, or an administrative agency’s enforcement order alleging a regulatory violation.
Appeal proceedings are critically important to property owners, developers, municipalities, and other community stakeholders because they decide significant matters relating to property rights, fairness and due process, economic development, neighborhood compatibility, and public policy. Our Land Use team combines our lawyers’ extensive experience in administrative permitting proceedings with litigation experience. Our clients regularly turn to us for advice and unwavering representation in administrative appeals related to all land use issues due to our wealth of experience in handling these matters.
Our Services
We represent clients in bringing and defending many kinds of administrative appeals to courts and administrative hearing officers that arise out of administrative decision-making.
Key areas of our courtroom experience include administrative appeals from municipal decisions involving:
- Inland wetlands and watercourses permits, site plans, special permits, variances, and subdivisions for an array of land use proposals such as coastal facilities, billboards, energy projects, gasoline stations, mixed-use projects, multifamily market rate and affordable housing, office and industrial projects, supermarkets, and warehouse clubs and all manner of warehouse uses from distribution centers to self storage facilities
- Legislative decision-making, such as amendments to zoning regulations and zoning maps
- Sewer and water authorities
- Zoning and wetlands enforcement
We also handle administrative appeals involving:
- Actions for high stakes injunctive relief arising from project opponent attempts to stall or kill projects
- State agency decisions relating to environmental permitting, such as sanitary sewer systems, and coastal permits and approvals for airports, clear zones and ports, ferry terminals, marinas, docks, pilings, and similar structures
- Decisions of trial courts brought to higher-level appellate courts
Our Team
Through a multidisciplinary approach, our land use attorneys who handle Administrative Appeals collaborate with colleagues across our firm’s diverse practice areas. We seamlessly integrate the knowledge, experience, and proficiency of our Business Transactions; and Litigation practice groups to achieve strong results for our clients. Our attorneys with strong skills in administrative permitting procedures collaborate with our deep bench of trial lawyers who have strong litigation skills, providing additional resources for more complex litigation. We also maintain strong working relationships with industry professionals, and specialized organizations, including the American Planning Association, for who we have written amicus briefs filed in various Circuit Courts and the United States Supreme Court.
Our top-tier Land Use Litigation attorneys who handle administrative appeals provide superior legal services for land use appeals. You can rely on our highly-skilled and experienced Land Use Litigation attorneys to support your goals when prosecuting or defending administrative appeals of municipal, state, and federal land use decisions.”
