Blaesser is a partner in the law firm of Robinson & Cole LLP and co-chair of the firm’s Land Use Group. He also heads the Land Use and Development Group in the firm’s Boston Massachusetts office, where he practices in the areas of commercial real estate development and leasing, multifamily residential development, land use and environmental law, planning law, condemnation law, and litigation. Mr. Blaesser represents real estate owners, investors, and developers in analyzing and securing requisite land use and development approvals from local governments, negotiating and drafting development agreements, and handling development projects which involve a wide range of environmental transactional and regulatory permitting matters with the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Mr. Blaesser received his B.A. from Brown University and his J.D. from Boston College where he served as an editor of the Law Review. He also holds a masters in city planning (M.C.P.) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and was a Fulbright Scholar.
Blaesser has extensive experience in state and federal trial and appellate courts in real estate and land use litigation, including the taking issue, impact fees, vested rights, mechanics liens, appeals of denials of variances and special permits, U.S. EPA enforcement actions, and violations of Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. He also is experienced in bringing administrative appeals of affordable housing decisions by zoning boards of appeal under the Massachusetts Comprehensive Permit Law.
Blaesser formerly served as Special Assistant Attorney General for eminent domain actions brought by the Illinois Departments of Transportation and Conservation. In his current practice, he handles condemnation matters for landowners and developers.
Mr. Blaesser has extensive experience in assisting developers address growth management initiatives and controls on such issues as impact fees, adequate public facilities (APF), growth phasing, transferable development rights (TDR), neo-traditional development standards, and urban growth boundaries (UGBs). In 1999, he chaired a National Task Force on Growth Management for the National Association of Industrial Office Properties (NAIOP), which produced the report Growing to Greatness.
As another dimension of his real estate development practice, Mr. Blaesser structures public/private partnerships with state and local governments on behalf of developer clients and is experienced in utilizing public financing mechanisms such as special assessment districts (SADs) and tax increment financing (TIF) to achieve economic development objectives.
Blaesser serves on the Editorial Board of the ICSC Retail Law Strategist, and is the author or co-author of numerous publications on land use and real estate development, including "Smart Growth: Legal Assumptions and Market Realities,'' Chapter 8 in the book, Smart Growth: Form and Consequences (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: 2002), "Substantive Due Process Protections at the Outer Margins of Municipal Behavior,'' 3 Wash. U. J.L.& Policy 583 (2000), Environmental Law and Transportation (National Cooperative Highway Research Program: Transportation Research Board (TRB), Washington, D.C.: 2002), "The Importance of ‘Process’ in Smart Growth Initiatives: Ballot Box Versus Streamlining,'' in Land Use Law & Zoning Digest (Vol. 52, No. 6, June, 2000), "Growth Management: A Developer’s Perspective,'' in Development (Vol.: XXIX, No. 3: 1998), "New Federal Wetlands Policy: The Landowner's Perspective,'' in Land Use Law & Zoning Digest (Vol. 46, No. 1, January, 1994), "Negotiating Entitlements,'' in Urban Land (December 1991); "Impact Fees: The Second Generation,'' 38 Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 401 (1990); Chapter 2: "The Problem in the 1980's and 1990's: The Meaning and Scope of Wipeouts'' in Wipeouts and Their Mitigation: The Changing Context for Land Use and Environmental Law (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: 1990); "Closing the Federal Courthouse Door on Property Owners: The Ripeness and Abstention Doctrines in Section 1983 Land Use Cases,'' 2 Hofstra Property Law Journal 73 (Spring 1989).
Blaesser is the appointed chair of NAIOP’s National Growth Issues Subcommittee, serves on the National Environment Subcommittee of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and is an elected member of Lambda Alpha International, the honorary land economics society. He is a frequent speaker at national, state, and local programs on land use, real estate development and litigation issues.