Practical guide to the legal issues of using urbanist and sustainable development principles

By examining and explaining the particular legal issues that accompany urbanist design and sustainable development, this timely book shows urban planners, developers, designers, and architects how to make the law work for them in planning and executing sustainable urban projects. Written by experienced attorneys, this book thoroughly explains the practical implications of the current law and legal theories surrounding urbanism and sustainability, and forecasts its future directions.

Using case studies, photographs, and illustrations, this book offers real-world solutions to the legal issues of urban and sustainable development, including:

Incorporating good urban design principles into local land regulation

Overcoming impediments to urban and sustainable design practice

Getting projects built and codes changed within the existing zoning framework

Using fundamentally new approaches to zoning

Managing and coping with litigation

Structuring and operating the mixed-use common interest community

Understanding legal issues specific to urbanist building types

Avoiding unnecessary conflicts between urbanist codes and sustainability codes

Collectively, the authors have handled every aspect of urbanist law. The two lead authors, Daniel K. Slone and Doris S. Goldstein, are attorneys who are pioneers in the field, having worked with architects, planners, city officials, and developers at the vanguard of urban planning and sustainability. Their comments and firsthand experience, interspersed throughout the book, help illuminate how the law governs day-to-day planning anddevelopment activities.

The movements toward sustainable and urbanist development are changing the landscape of America. Armed with this book, you can confidently navigate through the law as you initiate an urban development project and see it to fruition.