Bercow Radell Fernandez Larkin & Tapanes

Bercow Radell Fernandez Larkin & Tapanes is South Florida’s premier boutique law firm specializing in land use, zoning and environmental matters. The award-winning boutique firm was established in 1996 to provide strategic advice on zoning, land use and environmental law and is recognized for its expertise and breadth of experience.

The firm’s attorneys have expertise in regulations governing real property, land development, construction permitting and business licensing. Its clients are international, domestic and local landowners, developers, institutions, investors and businesses seeking approvals from government boards and agencies at the local, state and federal level. The firm excels at managing complex and politically sensitive legislative and quasi-judicial matters, from initial due diligence to construction.

Main areas of practice: The firm’s exclusive areas of practice are the fields of land use, zoning and environmental law.

Land use: the firm has extensive knowledge and experience of devising creative, custom strategies for interpreting and amending text and maps of local government comprehensive plans. For example, it represented a property owner in its efforts to redevelop an abandoned 200-acre golf course, and obtained approval of a proposed redevelopment plan with 400,000 square feet of commercial space, as well as 1.6m sq. ft of logistics/distribution uses; we subsequently represented a national residential developer in a successful amendment of the prior approvals for a 750 home residential community.

Zoning: the firm counsels clients and design professionals in identifying issues, preparing applications, negotiating with stakeholders, expediting processing and presenting zoning applications before local government boards. It represented a national developer in the due diligence, acquisition, stakeholder outreach, land use, zoning and permitting of a ten-acre mixed-use development on the Miami River in the urban core of the city of Miami; and we have represented two regional developers in a transit oriented mixed-use development at the Douglas Road MetroRail station site in Miami, long considered to be the “crown jewel” of Miami-Dade’s MetroRail stations.

Environmental: firm attorneys represent the interests of property owners, commercial enterprises, industrial users, waste management companies and rock quarrying businesses in environmental permitting and compliance, variances and exemptions, wetlands determination and mitigation, brownfields, and severable use rights. In the past we obtained approval for two new nuclear reactors at an existing facility in a designated environmental protection subarea, along with approvals for a series of temporary construction roads, two ancillary facilities required for nuclear reactor cooling water, a reclaimed water treatment facility and radial collector wells.