Kevin McDonnell represents developers, commercial and industrial property owners and luxury housing owners in land use, zoning, entitlements, building construction regulation, and occupancy compliance matters. He has handled hundreds of matters involving commercial, industrial and residential projects including multi-family, office, hotels, condo-hotels, retail, mixed-use and luxury residences. Kevin works extensively with local governmental agencies throughout Southern California in a large variety of land use and construction issues. He is both a registered Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer in California and formerly served as a building official for the City of Los Angeles. Kevin's experience allows him to provide unique professional insight in Zoning and Building Code applications and Code Enforcement issues, and gives him credibility with local governments. His practice includes compliance counseling, representation before government and regulatory organizations, litigation and dispute resolution.
Representative Experience- Assists numerous developers and businesses in obtaining land use entitlements including industrial, commercial and residential condominiums, multi-lot tract maps, mixed use residential/commercial high rise building projects, general plan amendments, zone changes, conditional use permits and variances.
- Multi-family. Assists multi-family property owners with entitlements including condominium subdivisions and condo conversions and provides representation for code enforcement matters before government building and housing agencies.
- Office. Represents property owners in obtaining approval for land use entitlements and permitting, including new construction and tenant improvements as well as building code compliance with fire life safety requirements.
- Retail. Assists property owners with land use entitlements and permitting working closely with building designers for new construction and tenant improvements for all types of retail uses.
- Industrial. Assists property owners and developers with entitlements, environmental compliance and permitting matters.
- Mixed-Use Projects. Assists property owners with land use matters involving new construction, conversions and adaptive reuse projects.
- Hotels and Condo-Hotels. Represents developers and owners of hotels in a broad range of land use and zoning matters including entitlements, code enforcement, easements and parking requirements, as well as related Parcel Map and Tract Map subdivision issues.
- Commercial businesses in construction. Represents several businesses responding to compliance orders from local building departments and code enforcement agencies allowing the businesses to remain open and new construction to remain on track.
- Former building official and principal policy maker, Los Angeles City Zoning/Building and Safety.
- Former principal Los Angeles City Department of Building and Safety representative in matters involving zoning and subdivision issues for major development and construction projects with the Office of the City Attorney, Office of the Mayor, City Council, the Department of Public Works, the Department of Transportation, the Department of City Planning, and the Office of Zoning Administration.
- Formerly advised the Los Angeles City Board of Building and Safety Commissioners in matters involving local and state land use and construction regulations.
- Testified as an expert witness, Los Angeles County District Attorney criminal trial resulting in criminal convictions for unlawful engineering, construction, and building inspection activities in one of Los Angeles County's longest trials spanning nearly 10 years.