Real Estate & Construction

November 14, 2019

This Fall, the California Coastal Commission (“Commission”) was handed down two significant victories, further cementing its authority and jurisdiction within California coastal zones. These cases demonstrate that, in certain instances, compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (Pub. Res. Code §§ 21000 et seq.) (“CEQA”) and local regulations may not be enough to secure development rights for either private developers or local governments.…

BuildSmart

In Alabama, Not All Debts Are Created Equal

By Carly Miller

November 14, 2019

Alabama’s materialman’s lien statute (specifically, Ala. Code § 35-11-211) was intended to provide construction lenders priority over materialmen as to debts relating to construction projects, and this intent was recently confirmed by the Alabama Supreme Court (GHB Construction and Development Co., Inc. v. West Alabama Bank and Trust, 2019 WL 1416893 (Ala. 2019)). In a recent decision, a contractor who provided labor and materials for the construction of a house filed a statement of lien…

Land Use Developments

Judicial NIMBYism? Overreaching San Mateo Trial Court Decision Takes on Legislature and Governor, Declaring Nearly 40-Year Old Housing Production Law Inapplicable to Charter Cities

By Bryan W. Wenter, AICP

November 14, 2019

California cities may be justified to be skeptical when officials from Sacramento offer broad solutions to the state’s pernicious housing crisis. But the decades-old crisis highlighted by a severe and unsustainable underproduction of new housing is real and getting worse, and the legislature is finally grappling with land use and housing policy proposals that would put meaningful guardrails on otherwise unfettered local control that has long stifled new housing supply.…

Larkin Hoffman Real Estate and Construction Blog

A Sobering Reminder of Who is in Charge of Your Land

By Peter Coyle

November 13, 2019

Imagine you are a landowner whose property is dedicated to a use that has run its course—say a golf course for example. The land represents a sizable family investment and naturally your thoughts turn to what other uses are possible to assure the land is put to a productive and, hopefully, profitable use for the benefit of your family. While the property is surrounded by a mix of low density housing, it nonetheless sits adjacent…

Larkin Hoffman Real Estate and Construction Blog

New Population Health Building is Designed for its Mission

By Bill Griffith

November 13, 2019

https://anchor.fm/larkin-hoffman-marketing/episodes/New-Population-Health-Building-is-Designed-for-its-Mission-e900u0 When a building serves a unique mission to improve global health and environmental resilience, sustainable design becomes more than a talking point. The Population Health Building at the University of Washington was largely funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and reflects the foundation’s desire to help all people lead healthy and productive lives by combating extreme hunger and poverty around the globe. A unique global mission demands a unique…

Crunched Credit

Ratings Agencies in the Crosshairs

By Rick Jones

November 13, 2019

Back in the febrile, hyperventilated times that birthed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (blessedly known simply as Dodd-Frank), one of the issues that energized the activists’ intent on “fixing” what was wrong was the notion that the ratings agencies were complicit in the overpricing of financial assets. In a “want for a nail, a shoe was lost” sort of way, overpricing of financial assets caused asset bubbles which led to or…

Association Alert

Directors Removed from Office – Just Follow the Documents

By Daniel Miske

November 13, 2019

Summary A 79-unit condominium association held a meeting to remove the directors from office and elect new ones. The president objected to the meeting, the procedure and the notice, but since the association followed the documents and had more than half of the unit owners vote for the removal, the directors were removed.…

The Lien Zone

How To Reduce the Risk of Vandals Graffiti Tagging Your Construction Site

By Patrick Barthet

November 13, 2019

We’re all familiar with graffiti. There’s been plenty of it around for a very long time. Those of us who live in Miami have even seen it develop into an art form. Wynwood Walls has been transformed into an international tourist attraction, exhibiting spectacular and visually stunning outdoor murals by a variety of aspiring artists. Of all the forms of graffiti, tagging may be the most popular – spray painting one’s name, initials or symbols,…

California Construction Law Blog

Introducing Nomos LLP!

By Garret Murai

November 12, 2019

By Garret Murai, November 12, 2019 We’ve been quiet lately we know. We’ve been nesting. Not the alien popping though your stomach kind of nesting, although, there have been a few white knuckled “what the heck did we get ourselves into!” moments. Rather, we’ve been quietly building something we think is pretty great. Not just for us, but for our clients. Our own law firm. So here’s the 411: What’s with the name Nomos LLP?…

Ahead of Schedule

Cyber Risk Update for Construction Companies

By Tamara Boeck & Jon Washburn

November 11, 2019

Scammers are always seeking new ways to target victims for Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, where they leverage email to try to convince you to give them credentials, send them confidential information like W2s, send them money by changing things like direct deposit instructions, or give any other data that can help them profit from committing fraud. They are getting more and more sophisticated in their deceptions, and targeting those areas they see as ‘weak…