Dear Members of the Zoning, Planning, and Land Use Section:

Happy Fall! Welcome to the 2021-2022 bar year. I am honored to serve as the Chair of the Zoning, Planning and Land Use Section for this year. As we start the year, I want to thank our Council members, committee chairs, and liaison members for volunteering their valuable time to our section through chairing our committees and serving on the Council. I also want to thank our section members for being part of the section and providing the contributions that you provide to our section and our corner of the profession. If any members of the section would like to serve on one of our committees, please reach out to me. We will find a place for you!

We start this year with great hopes that things are moving back toward the normal that we have missed during this pandemic. With this in mind, please mark your calendars for the 2022 Zoning, Planning, & Land Use Section CLE and Annual Meeting that will be held on Thursday, April 21, 2022. We have great hopes that the 2022 CLE and Annual Meeting will be in person at the Bar Center in Cary. Assuming we can meet in person, we intend to look for ways to make this CLE and Annual Meeting a celebration of our ability to come back together in person by offering enhanced networking opportunities. Of course, these plans are dependent upon the state of the pandemic in April, but I think it is safe to assume that we all share the same hope that we will be in a better place with this pandemic in April 2022 and that an in-person CLE and Annual Meeting will be possible.

I would like to make one request of the members of the section this year. As a member of the section, each of you are sure to have had experiences in Zoning and Land Use matters that have taught you lessons that have made you a stronger practitioner in our particular area of practice. If you can make the time, please share those lessons and experiences with the other members of the Zoning, Planning, & Land Use Section by writing a blog post. These blog posts do not have to be long and/or written in great detail. Instead, they can be written in the way you deem fit as long as they convey the lesson that you want to share. Keep in mind, if the experience meant something to you, I am sure it will mean something to others. So, please share! If you would like to contribute to the section blog, please submit your blog post and headshot to our Communications Committee Co-Chairs, Toby Coleman ([email protected]) and Amy Schaefer ([email protected]).

If you have any suggestions or ideas on how the Zoning, Planning, & Land Use Section can be of better service to its members this year, please do not hesitate to contact me!

December 7, 2021/by ZPLU