practice areas |
public agencies |
community groups |
members of the firm |
hiring
Andrew W. Schwartz
Andrew W. Schwartz joined Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger in January 2005, after 22 years in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office and is a partner with the firm. He specializes in regulatory takings, eminent domain, development impact fees, and general land use and real estate litigation. Mr. Schwartz received his JD degree in 1979 from UCLA, where he was a member of the Law Review, and his undergraduate degree in 1976 from Stanford University.
During his employment with San Francisco, Mr. Schwartz represented the City in many precedent-setting land use cases, including San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, 27 Cal.4th 643 (2002), which set the standard for challenges to development impact fees, and Guinnane v. San Francisco Planning Commission, 209 Cal.App.3d 732 (1989), a landmark case affirming the breadth of the local government police power to regulate land use.
A frequent participant in regulatory takings cases in state and federal appellate courts as amicus curiae, Mr. Schwartz filed amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court regulatory takings cases City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes and Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington. Most recently, he authored an amicus brief on behalf of the League of California Cities in the Supreme Court takings case Lingle v. Chevron and contributed to an amicus brief in the eminent domain case, Kelo v. City of New London, also before the Supreme Court. Mr. Schwartz was part of a team of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger attorneys who won a unanimous decision in the United States Supreme Court in San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323 (2005), where the Court determined that adjudication of regulatory takings claims against local government agencies must be conducted in state courts. Mr. Schwartz also recently filed an amicus brief and presented oral argument on behalf of the League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties in the California Supreme Court in Travis v. County of Santa Cruz, 94 P.3d 538 (2004), where the Supreme Court addressed state statutory preemption of local zoning ordinances. Mr. Schwartz is a co-founder of the Community Land Use Project of California, a special project of California's Institute for Local Self Government. The Project assists local government agencies in preserving an appropriate balance between individual property rights and community interests.
Mr. Schwartz represents the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the Sacramento Redevelopment Agency, the City of Alameda, and other local government agencies in eminent domain and real estate acquisition matters. He has represented San Francisco in numerous eminent domain actions to acquire open space and parks, defended San Francisco in the eminent domain acquisition of the right-of-way for the BART extension to the San Francisco International Airport, and was the lead counsel for the City in the eminent domain acquisition of the real estate for the Moscone West Convention Center Project, at $110 million, one of the largest eminent domain acquisitions in California history. Mr. Schwartz argued City and County of San Francisco v. Golden Gate Heights Investments, 14 Cal.App.4th 1203 (1993) and Terminals Equipment Co., Inc. v. City and County of San Francisco, 221 Cal.App.3d 234 (1990), establishing permissible valuation methods for acquisition of open space by eminent domain and rules for precondemnation liability, and many other eminent domain cases in the trial and appellate courts.
Mr. Schwartz is a frequent speaker on land use litigation, eminent
domain, and takings. He is a regular presenter at conferences of the
Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute and the National
College of District Attorneys (NCDA) and is a recipient of the Lecturer
of Merit Award from the NCDA. Mr. Schwartz
is an adjunct professor of law at Golden Gate University Law School where
he teaches a course on Regulatory Takings and Environmental Law. He received
the County Counsels’ Association of California Litigation Program
Award for 2003 and the American Bar Association Pro Bono Service Award
2003. Mr. Schwartz is a recipient of a 2006 California Lawyer of the
Year (CLAY) Award, presented in the March 2006 issue of California Lawyer
Magazine.
Mr. Schwartz's publications include the chapter on Exactions: Dedications
and Development Impact Fees in Cal. CEB, California Land Use
Practice (2006),
co-authored with Kenneth Bley, the Takings Litigation Handbook, Defending
Takings Challenges to Land Use Regulation, with Douglas Kendall
and Timothy Dowling (2000), The Basics of Takings Law published
in 1999 by the Institute for Local Self Government of California, the
article Reciprocity of Advantage:
The Antidote to the Antidemocratic Trend in Regulatory Takings appearing
in the Fall 2003 Issue of the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy
and the 2005 issue of West’s California Zoning Handbook, the article
San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco: Victory for
Local Control of Land Use, 10 Cal. Env. L. Rptr. 421 (2005) and 12
Env. Law In N.Y. 247 (2005), and the article Overripe Takings Claims
Produce Rotten Fruit for Regulatory Agencies in the Winter 1999 issue
of the Policy Awareness Quarterly published by the Center for Government & Public
Policy Analysis. Excerpts from
the Takings Litigation Handbook have been reprinted in the September
2000 Zoning
and Planning Law Report published by West Group (Vol. 23, No. 8)
and the Urban
Law Journal. Mr. Schwartz is a contributing editor of the 2003
update of the California Municipal Law Handbook.
Mr. Schwartz is a member of the Bar of the State of California, the United States Supreme Court, the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Ninth Circuit, and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Central, and Eastern Districts of California.