About

     Richard Schulman is a real estate attorney specializing in land use: environmental impact

reports, zoning, and conditions and fees on imposed on housing and commercial projects. He

obtains entitlements to develop, defends those entitlements in court, and challenges in court

improper conditions and fees imposed on those projects.

Representative Accomplishments

- Successfully defended against litigation challenging the environmental analyses for

projects ranging from a dozen homes to mid-sized condominium projects to retail stores and

shopping centers.

- Drafted and negotiated development agreement and parks agreement for a major (2,000+

residential units, 2,000,000+ sq.ft. commercial space) project in Chula Vista on a site roughly the

size of downtown San Diego.

- Performed land use due diligence analyses for a Fortune 500 retailer’s new stores and

distribution centers throughout California.

- Obtained development entitlements for 800-unit condominium towers, then successfully

defended litigation challenging the entitlements.

- Successfully challenged condition imposed by city on conversion of hundreds of

apartments to condominiums.

- Successfully challenged city fees imposed on private school project.

- Successfully challenged inclusionary (affordable) housing ordinance on behalf of

builder/developer association.

- Wrote briefs seeking review by California Supreme Court regarding arbitration provision

of covenants, conditions and restrictions. After review was granted, wrote briefs resulting in

court’s overturning of lower courts’ decisions.

     Mr. Schulman’s practice includes a significant amount of appellate work. He has argued

or prepared winning briefs for several published appellate cases, including before the California

Supreme Court and has qualified as an expert on land use law and practice in Superior Court.

     His regulatory finance practice includes representing developers in connection with the

process of forming community facilities (Mello-Roos) districts and issuance of bonds. He has

also successfully litigated challenges to special taxes and development impact fees.

     He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Stanford Club of San Diego,

School Site Governance Council, and the Tierrasanta Community Council. He has also served as

an adjunct professor of law and business, teaching full-semester courses in real estate law,

municipal law and legal writing, and has taught numerous professional seminars on land use

topics.