Land Development in Pennsylvania is governed, in large part, by the Municipalities Planning Code or MPC. The MPC provides the default rules and the framework upon which local subdivision, land development, and zoning ordinances are based. The MPC and the many local ordinances are highly intricate and complex, and must be followed meticulously in order to ensure the desired result. As a developer you may also have to comply with numerous other state and federal laws dealing with the regulation of traffic, storm water the environment, and many other industry specific practices.
Our land development attorneys understand that each project presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities. Our goal is to guide our clients through the land development process as quickly and cost effectively as possible while taking care to comply with the very technical requirements of the various laws, ordinances and regulations. To accomplish this, our land development attorneys work with the real estate, construction law, administrative/government law, and municipal law attorneys within our firm as well as a vast network of engineers and consultants throughout the region. Whether you are planning a housing development, shopping center, condominium complex, or factory, a land development attorney at Leventry, Haschak & Rodkey, LLC can help you see your project to completion.
At Leventry, Haschak & Rodkey, LLC we have combined our land development practice with our commercial leasing practice. Unlike many of the major cites, where an office building may be built with no particular tenant in mind, we have found that most development in Central and Western Pennsylvania is tenant driven. This tendency has become even more pronounced in recent years due to more strict lending practices and less risk tolerance on the part of developers. In a tenant driven development, the shopping center or office complex is designed specifically for one or more large “anchor” tenants, who have signed leases prior to development. In a tenant-driven development, the needs of the tenant are a paramount consideration. We believe that the attorney responsible for obtaining land development approvals should be an active participant in the negotiation of the leases to ensure that the developer is ultimately able to deliver a development that meets the tenant’s requirements.
Our commercial leasing attorneys are also experienced in negotiating leases on behalf of retail, office, and industrial landlords and tenants for both new and existing space. Effective representation in a commercial leasing transaction requires the knowledge of not only contract law, but also; business and economic principles, environmental law, the land development process, insurance coverage, and the principles of negotiation. Quite often, an inexperienced attorney will either ruin a transaction in an effort to win every point of the negotiation or conversely, concede an important point in an effort to get the deal done. A skilled practitioner is capable of advising his clients on acceptable vs. unacceptable risks, and drafting documents to protect the clients’ interests without killing the deal in the process. Through creative problem solving and good business sense, the leasing attorneys at Leventry, Haschak & Rodkey, LLC are “deal makers” not “deal breakers”.