What you can build, run, or change on a piece of California property is decided long before construction: by zoning, permits, easements, and environmental review. A land use attorney gets projects through that gauntlet and defends property rights when someone else’s project threatens them. VK Law advises owners, developers, and neighbors across California on zoning, entitlements, easements, title clearance, and development planning.
- Zoning and the local general plan decide what a property can be used for; permits and entitlements decide what you can build on it.
- Easements and boundary problems are title problems: they follow the land and surface at the worst possible time, usually during a sale or a build.
- Many California projects also pass through environmental review under CEQA before approval.
- To talk with VK Law about a land use matter, call 877-780-4727.
What Land Use Law Covers
Land use is the layer of law between owning property and actually using it:
- Zoning and the general plan: the permitted uses, densities, heights, and setbacks for each parcel.
- Permits and entitlements: conditional use permits, variances, design review, and subdivision approvals.
- Easements and access: recorded and unrecorded rights across land, driveway and utility disputes, prescriptive claims.
- Title review and clearance: finding and fixing the recorded surprises before they derail a project or a sale.
- Development planning: sequencing approvals, conditions, and agreements so a project actually pencils.
- Environmental review: the studies and findings that many approvals require.
Entitlements: How a Project Gets Approved
Most approvals run through a predictable path: application and staff review, public hearing before a planning commission or zoning administrator, conditions of approval, and, when someone objects, an appeal to the city council or board of supervisors. The variables are local: each city and county writes its own code, timelines, and politics. We help clients position an application before it is filed, respond to conditions that quietly change the project’s economics, and challenge or defend approvals on appeal.
Easements, Boundaries, and Title
Access and boundary rights decide what a parcel is worth. We draft and negotiate easements, resolve driveway, fence-line, and utility disputes, and clear title defects that block a sale or a loan. When a dispute cannot be settled (a blocked access route, a neighbor building over the line, a contested prescriptive claim), our California civil litigation practice takes it to court.
CEQA and Environmental Review
The California Environmental Quality Act (Public Resources Code section 21000 and following) requires public agencies to study the environmental effects of many discretionary approvals before granting them. Depending on the project, that can mean an exemption, a negative declaration, or a full environmental impact report, each with its own cost, timeline, and litigation exposure. Knowing which track a project belongs on, early, is often the difference between a season and a year.
Easements Come in Four Flavors
Not every access right is written down, which is why these disputes get complicated: an express easement is created by a recorded document; an implied easement arises from how a property was historically used when parcels were split; an easement by necessity can exist where a landlocked parcel has no other access; and a prescriptive easement can ripen from years of open, continuous use without permission. Which one applies changes both the fight and the fix, and long-running neighbor arrangements can quietly create or destroy rights.
ADUs and the State Housing Push
California has spent the last decade systematically limiting local governments’ ability to say no to housing: accessory dwelling units most of all. State law now constrains the standards, fees, and timelines cities may impose on ADU applications, and later legislation has kept tightening the screws. For owners, that often converts a “the city says no” into a “the city is not allowed to say no”, if someone presses the point with the statutes in hand.
Challenging a Project, or Defending One
Approvals can be attacked, and attacks can be beaten. The usual sequence: exhaust the administrative appeal (planning commission to council or board), then, if needed, seek court review by writ: arguing the agency ignored its own code, the general plan, or CEQA. Deadlines in this field are unforgiving and often measured in weeks, so the decision to challenge has to be made quickly. We stand on both sides: neighbors and competitors challenging a defective approval, and applicants defending one they earned.
How We Help
We review the zoning and title picture before you buy or design (buying with entitlement risk is a purchase and sale question as much as a land use one), then guide the approvals, papers, and disputes that follow. Land use work is part of our broader California real estate practice.
To talk with VK Law about zoning, easements, or a development project, call 877-780-4727. The consultation is free.
Reviewed by Alan Khalfin, Managing Partner (California). Last reviewed: July 8, 2026.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
Advises on what a property can legally be used for and gets projects approved: zoning analysis, permits and variances, subdivision approvals, easements, title clearance, environmental review, and appeals. On the defensive side, a land use attorney protects owners from neighboring projects and enforcement actions.
A variance asks the agency to relax a physical standard (a setback, height, or lot rule) because the parcel itself is unusual. A conditional use permit allows a use the zone permits only with case-by-case approval and conditions. Which one a project needs depends on the local code.
The California Environmental Quality Act: the state law requiring public agencies to evaluate the environmental effects of many discretionary approvals before granting them. Projects may qualify for an exemption, a negative declaration, or require a full environmental impact report, and CEQA findings are a frequent target of project challenges.
Start with the recorded documents: the easement’s scope and location control. Many access disputes settle once the paperwork is on the table; those that do not may support a quiet title or injunction action. Acting promptly matters, because use patterns can affect rights over time.
That is the best time. A pre-purchase review of zoning, title exceptions, easements, and likely approval requirements tells you what the land can actually become, and what conditions or studies stand in the way, before the price is locked in.
A use right earned by using someone else’s land openly and continuously for years without permission: a driveway, a path, a utility line. Whether one has ripened depends on the history and the evidence, which is why documenting (or interrupting) long-running use patterns matters on both sides.
They can try: through the public-hearing process, administrative appeals, and sometimes a lawsuit challenging the approval. Most challenges fail when the record is built properly, which is why we prepare applications with the eventual challenge in mind rather than treating approval as the finish line.
