Professor Dan Mandelker - Daniel R. Mandelker is a leading scholar and teacher in land use law, environmental law, and state and local government law. He was the principal consultant and contributor to the American Planning Association’s model planning and zoning legislation project. He also was the principal author of amendments to the New Orleans city charter that require a comprehensive planning process and give the comprehensive plan the force of law. Additionally, he was also the principal consultant to a joint American Bar Association committee that prepared a model law for land use procedures that was adopted by the ABA House of Delegates. Mandelker received the ABA’s State and Local Government Section Daniel J. Curtin Lifetime Achievement Award. He has lectured abroad in England, Spain, Israel, and other countries.

Dwight Merriam - Dwight Merriam represents developers, local governments, landowners, and advocacy groups in land development and conservation issues. He has published over 180 professional articles on land use law, co-edited Inclusionary Zoning Moves Downtown, co-authored The Takings Issue, and authored The Complete Guide to Zoning. He is a Fellow and past president of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a former director of the American Planning Association (APA) and a previous chair of APA’s Planning & Law Division. He is also a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and The Counselors of Real Estate, and he teaches land use law at Vermont Law School. Mr. Merriam received his B.A. in sociology, cum laude, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he was also elected to Phi Kappa Phi. He received his master of regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. at Yale Law School.

Professor David Owens of UNC-Chapel Hill. Professor Owens joined UNC’s Institute of Government in 1989. Prior to that, he was an attorney and senior planner for the Wisconsin State Planning Office and spent 10 years with the NC Division of Coastal Management. His publications include numerous books and articles on zoning law, including the basic legal reference, Land Use Law in North Carolina, and the widely used guide for citizen boards, Introduction to Zoning. He has also written on the a variety of land use law topics (variances, special use permits, extraterritorial jurisdiction), the scope of local government authority, urban growth management, regulation of religious land uses and adult businesses, conflicts of interest, planning legislation, and various aspects of coastal management law and policy.