Stephen P. Chinn

Steve, the Chairman of the firm’s Public Law Practice Group, serves as City Attorney of Fairway, Kansas, zoning counsel to Roeland Park, Kansas, and as outside special counsel to public sector entities throughout the Midwest on issues related to municipal, land use, planning, public infrastructure finance, development/redevelopment and storm water management. Steve served for five years as the General Counsel to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, and has served two years as City Attorney of Lake Tapawingo, Missouri. Prior to joining Stinson Morrison Hecker, Steve was a partner in the law firm of Freilich, Leitner, Carlisle & Shortlidge, P.C., a boutique law firm with a national land use practice. He also served for 10 years as an assistant city attorney with the City of Kansas City, Kansas. Steve has significant experience in the development of creative funding strategies for public infrastructure; transportation planning, unified development codes, zoning and subdivision ordinances, overlay and neo-traditional/new urbanist code drafting; and plan implementation strategies (regulatory and financing), including comprehensive, master, area, corridor, storm water management and transportation plans, and documenting public/private development partnership and the use of economic development incentives.

Representative Experience

Community Involvement

Bar Admissions

Professional Affiliations

Articles

Presentations

• Missouri Municipal Attorneys' Association Annual Meeting, "Annual Update on Missouri Land Use Cases," (July 15-17, 2011).

Fairway Initiative Petition Cases, City Attorney Association of Kansas, (June 5, 2009).

• Missouri Municipal Attorney Association Annual Seminar, "Update on Federal and Missouri Land Use Cases" (Annually).
  
  
• American Planning Association Kansas Chapter Fall Conference, "Taking Principles After the Supreme Court's 2005 Decisions: Takings 101," (September 6, 2007).
  
  
• Mid-America Regional Council, Planning and Zoning Commissioners Workshop Series; training for Missouri and Kansas City Council and Planning Commission members and planning department staff on land use and annexation issues (2003-2008).
  
  
• 2009 Kansas Parks & Recreation Association Annual Meeting, "Legal Issues for Recreational Professionals," (January 2009).
  
  
• 2002 APWA International Public Works Congress and Exposition, "Rain to Recreation: Innovative Approaches to Suburban Storm Water Management," Kansas City, Missouri (September 2002).
  
  
• Combined City Council & Planning Commission of Overland Park, Kansas Training Sessions, "Zoning & Subdivision Law," Overland Park, Kansas (August/September 2000).
  
  
• Local Government Training Institute, "Local Government Infrastructure Financing," St. Louis, Missouri (February 2000).
  

Recognitions

• Consistently listed in The Best Lawyers in America for Land Use & Zoning Law and Municipal Law. 
• Named to the Kansas City Busines Journal's "Best of the Bar" for Municipal Law in 2005, 2006 and 2007. 
• Steve has been selected for inclusion in Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers since 2005 in the area of Government/Cities/Municipalities.   
• In 1999, Steve was designated a Local Government Fellow by the International Municipal Lawyers Association. He was one of the first 10 individuals selected for this honor. He was recertified as a Fellow in 2005 and 2010.
• In 2000, Steve received IMLA’s President’s Award for Most Outstanding Associate Member.
• Steve is a Fellow Lifetime Member of Continental Who's Who for outstanding leadership and achievement.