Client Advocacy, Community Relations and Community Outreach

HCG offers an array of legal and consulting services to build community ties and successfully manage projects in challenging environments. We have worked successfully with a variety of entities in this domain, including the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority on the Blue Line Light Rail Project and Southern California Edison Company on the Tehachapi Renewable Energy Project.

• Cultivating community relationships and facilitating outreach programs through:
  • Developing tools to record and address issues, and provide project statuses and reports.
• Planning and managing logistics through:
  • Agreements preparation and enforcement.
  • Jobsite monitoring.
  • Communications facilitation.
• Detecting and resolving impact issues to surrounding communities and environments
• Coordinating municipal and other regulatory entities through compliance and permitting

HCG leverages its superior knowledge of real estate, compliance, and agreements to ensure clients achieve desired outcomes. We worked with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority to implement mitigation measures that addressed environmental concerns during the engineering and construction phases of the Blue Line Light Rail. We have also assisted the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California draft and negotiate cooperative agreements with parties seeking to affect easements in the course of real property developments. In all cases we leverage our distinct capabilities:

• Due diligence for land/real estate acquisitions
  • Impact and/or environmental restraint studies.
  • Feasibility studies.
  • Planning and cost analyses.
• Compliance, permits and other approvals (state, local and federal)
  • Zoning and building ordinance.
  • Conditions of approval, impact fees, bonds, licenses, dedications.
• Drafting and negotiating agreements
  • Developer agreements.
  • Redevelopment agreements.
  • Easements and right-of-ways.
  • Conservation agreements.
• Construction Mitigation (see above)
  • Resolving civil rights, eminent domain, condemnation matters and other impact issues.
  • Resolving land use issues.

HCG has for years introduced our client’s message into targeted communities to effect a desired outcome (e.g., engaging in an activity, attending a town hall event, etc.). As an example, HCG provided consulting services to the Metropolitan Water District relating to community outreach and local jobs. We have also leveraged our targeted outreach and liaison services with clients such as the U.S. Department of Labor, and Various Southern California Regional Agencies.

Our experience covers:

• Grass roots and marketing campaigns (media, advertisement and other promotion campaigns).
• Surveys and other tools for measuring community response.
• Coordination with public officials and other necessary authorities.
• Project tracking and reporting, presentation to stakeholders.