March 16, 2021 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Land Use - Philadelphia Municipal League, Land Use: Overcoming Legal Hurdles to Changing the Use of Obsolete Municipal Real Estate Facilities: A Case Study
Description: Over time, municipal facilities may become obsolete. Municipalities often face legal obstacles to implementing new uses for those facilities. A municipal lawyer must find legal routes to help clients enact innovative proposals that transform a facility’s use. Where real estate assets are involved, the lawyer often must find ways to accommodate or remove existing land-use restrictions. This seminar will discuss common land-use restrictions that impede changing the use of municipal real estate and then, as a case study, examine a City of Philadelphia project that transformed an abandoned reservoir into an environmental center and park. The project required compliance with land-use restrictions imposed under the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965, a major grant program that affects municipal parks and recreation facilities around the nation.
Speaker: Lawrence Copeland (Lawrence.Copeland@phila.gov)
Larry Copeland is the senior attorney in the City of Philadelphia Law Department, Real Estate and Development Division. He chiefly handles a variety of real estate and commercial transactions, including major development leases, concession agreements, license agreements, and purchase and sale agreements. He counsels City officials with respect to art collections and the charitable trusts that support them, and he negotiates agreements for new donations of art to the City. Mr. Copeland provides legal services for many of the City’s operating departments, including the Mayor’s Office, Department of Parks and Recreation, Free Library, Public Property Department, Office of Arts and Culture, and the Managing Director’s Office.
Mr. Copeland was the City’s lead attorney in negotiating and writing agreements to implement numerous important developments of City properties, including the new Discovery Center in East Fairmount Park, the Barnes Foundation Museum, the Please Touch Museum, the historic Cobbs Creek Golf Club, the Legacy Youth Tennis academy (formerly Arthur Ashe Academy), parking garages for the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Zoo, the School of the Future, Franklin Square, and Philadelphia Holocaust Memorial Plaza.
Mr. Copeland has served as an Adjunct Professor teaching “Contract Drafting” at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Rutgers University School of Law – Camden, and the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. For several years he served as Vice President of Taney Youth Baseball Association, the youth baseball league whose team competed in the 2014 Little League World Series. Before joining the City, Mr. Copeland worked with the firm Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center.