Structuring Real Estate Development Agreements With Municipalities

Description

Development agreements offer certainty for local governments and developers. Development agreements can provide for the certainty of governing regulations, predictability, and more accessible financing.

Benefits for developers and property owners often include flexibility for long-term multi-phased development projects, greater vested rights assurances for developers, incentives to address gap financing issues, and infrastructure management and other developer obligations.

For municipalities, development agreements provide a vehicle for facilitating a municipality's comprehensive planning goals and commitments for public facilities and off-site infrastructure, and opportunities to seek greater developer fees and exactions beyond standard conditions of approval.

Counsel negotiating development agreements should include terms to ensure implementation and protect against claims, including allegations of illegal contract zoning and violations of constitutional nexus limitations. The panel will address ways to incorporate community benefits into development agreements to optimize the likelihood of approval on the one hand while minimizing unlimited development costs that can compromise project feasibility and complicate development agreements.

Listen as our authoritative panel of land use and real estate counsel examines the benefits of development agreements and how to structure and negotiate terms for the owner/developer. The panel will offer practical guidance on ways to avoid or handle challenges to the arrangements.