​How to stop development threatening neighborhood health, safety and tranquility​

CEDS helps people to preserve the health, safety, and tranquility of their neighborhoods when threatened by excessive traffic, proposed gas stations, landfills, and many other Issues We Can Help You Win.  CEDS uses a unique approach that greatly increases our clients’ success in winning land development battles and a long list of other issues posing a threat to a neighborhood.  Our approach is far more effective and costs a fraction of what our clients would pay if they just hired a lawyer or other professionals.  For a no-cost initial discussion of options for resolving the issue of concern to you contact CEDS at 410-654-3021 or Help@ceds.org.

Equitable Solutions & Politically Oriented Advocacy: The Easiest Way to Preserve Neighborhood Health, Safety & Tranquility

Our unique approach to stopping development threatening a neighborhood begins with Equitable Solutions.  Following are a few examples of Equitable Solution that resolve our clients concerns while allowing applicants to achieve their goals:

• Prevent a tremendous increase in traffic on a neighborhood streets by supporting alternative access for proposed development,
• Convincing an applicant to install far better visual buffering to preserve natural views enjoyed by nearby homeowners, or
• Mobilizing the public support required by a city to minimize the need for a new landfill or waste transfer station.

In the majority of our cases the Equitable Solution(s) is adopted without our clients having to hire lawyers or other costly professionals.  If the applicant rejects our solution we use Politically Oriented Advocacy to provide elected officials with the public support needed to mandate our Equitable Solutions or implement other options for winning land development battles.

Winning By Avoiding Rookie Mistakes

With our decades of experience winning development battles, CEDS can help you avoid pitfalls that undercut success.  Petitions are a good example.  While they can be a valuable tool, most newcomers rely petition services such as change.org or ipetitions both of which can be ideal for the right issues.  However, most land use issues are local. 

To win you must demonstrate:

• substantial local support for your position, and
• that signers will be reminded how decision-makers acted on an issue just before the next election. 

CEDS assists our clients in using petition services that allow the gathering of signer name, address, phone and email info.  This info allows CEDS to provide decision-makers with a map showing that most petition signers live in their district and are being informed of which officials are and are not looking out for their interests.  For an example see: http://www.ceds.org/hcarwm/#what

Smart Legal Strategies & CEDS Attorneys Greatly Increase Success at a Lower Cost

When a project threatening neighborhood health, safety and tranquility is so poorly planned that Equitable Solutions are not sufficient, then our Smart Legal Strategies approach can be combined with Politically Oriented Advocacy to greatly increase success in killing bad development.  Because the attorneys in the CEDS network specialize in helping people preserve their neighborhood through land use, zoning and environmental laws, CEDS clients win more cases at a lower cost.  But the real key to our much higher success rate is the research we do, which few outside our network perform, through a CEDS Strategy Analysis.

CEDS Strategy Analysis Key to Quickest, Least Expensive Way of Stopping Harmful Growth

Many of our clients opt for a CEDS Initial Strategy Analysis where we identify the best approach to stop development threatening a neighborhood by:

• Documenting project impacts,
• Identifying all permits-approval the project requires,
• Determining which permit-approval gives our clients the best chance of victory, 
• Seeking Equitable Solutions for each impact and negotiate with the applicant or regulators to win adoption of the solution, 
• Mobilizing the public support elected officials need to force adoption of our Equitable Solutions or to deny approval for an excessive threat to neighborhood health, safety and tranquility, 
• Help our clients find the best lawyer in the CEDS Good Attorneys network to prevent issuance of a key permit or other approval, and 
• We can then, if needed, help you raise the funds required to fight the good fight.

For a no-cost initial discussion of options for winning land development battles and defending your neighborhood from other threats contact CEDS at 410-654-3021 or Help@ceds.org. For further detail on how CEDS wins battles involving threats to neighborhoods see How To Win Land Development Issues, our free 300-page book by CEDS president Richard Klein.