Steven M. Elrod represents private and public sector clients on a broad range of land use, zoning, real estate and entitlements matters. Mr. Elrod is the chairman of Holland & Knight's National Land Use and Government Team and is the executive partner of the firm's Chicago office. He also served on Holland & Knight's national board of directors for two consecutive terms.
Mr. Elrod is the corporation counsel for the City of Highland Park, Ill., and the village attorney for the Villages of Northbrook and Lincolnwood, Ill. He is also actively involved in the general representation of the firm’s more than two dozen Chicago area municipal clients.
Mr. Elrod represents land owners and tenants in a variety of real estate and transactional projects. He handles large tract property acquisition and retail and shopping center leasing and is regularly engaged to secure zoning relief and government entitlements, incentives and approvals for developers and land owners. His land use and local government law practice focuses on:
• public-private partnerships
• tax incentive and abatement agreements, including tax increment financing (TIF)
• annexation, subdivision and development agreements
• historic preservation regulation
• affordable housing regulation
Mr. Elrod also has extensive experience in the litigation of land use issues, including eminent domain; regulatory takings and inverse condemnation; development impact fees; procedural and substantive due process, RLUIPA; and the First Amendment. He recently successfully argued a religious land use case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
In 2010, Mr. Elrod was elected to the board of managers of the 20,000 member Chicago Bar Association, and he currently serves as chairman of the board of directors of the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing law-related and civic education to elementary and high school students.
Mr. Elrod is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University School of Law, where he teaches State & Local Government Law.