Susan E. Demmitt

Susan Demmitt is a seasoned land use and real estate attorney with a well-earned reputation for successfully navigating the complexities of large-scale development projects, including master-planned communities and industrial campuses, as well as specialty projects and affordable housing. With 23 years of experience and a background in architecture and urban planning, she provides creative, business-minded solutions for clients throughout the entire development process.

Susan is an attorney with Gammage & Burnham’s Real Estate and Land Use Practice Group, where she draws on her diverse experience to guide clients through the intricacies of land use entitlements, development permitting, and complex real estate acquisitions. Her practice includes negotiating development and infrastructure reimbursement agreements, impact fee agreements, community facilities districts, and annexations, as well as providing strategic oversight of public outreach campaigns.

With a professional background as an architect and urban planner, Susan is uniquely equipped to tackle the multifaceted legal and regulatory challenges that arise in large-scale development projects. She has extensive experience as the architect of regulatory structures for master planned communities and a reputation for handling large-scale real estate entitlement projects.  Her experience extends to projects with unique needs such as complex mixed-use projects, golf course redevelopments, railroad facilities, hospital campuses and LIHTC affordable housing projects. She has also developed strong relationships with developers, landowners, consultants, and government officials, particularly within the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and has longstanding relationships with the Arizona State Land Department, where she frequently assists clients with leasing and acquiring State Trust Land.

Susan earned her law degree from the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and holds a degree in architecture from Kansas State University, giving her a well-rounded approach to real estate and land use law. She is actively involved in shaping the future of development in Arizona and is a trusted advisor to her clients.

Court Admissions

• State Bar of Arizona

Significant Representations

• Serves as land use counsel for several of the most active homebuilders in Arizona, providing guidance on acquisitions, entitlements, development agreements and transactional documents.
• Drafted zoning regulations and managed the entitlement and acquisition process for an innovative 500-acre master-planned community in Mesa, Arizona.
• Managed the entitlement process for a 400-acre master-planned community in Phoenix, including facilitation of a public-private partnership with the City to jointly construct a critical arterial roadway corridor.
• Conceived and negotiated a tri-party agreement between the City of Phoenix Parks Department, local school district and private developer to create a joint-use school and public park facility that will be used as a model by the City for future joint use facilities.
• Managed a complex entitlement process for a 475-acre master planned community in the City of Phoenix that included a groundbreaking partnership with the National Wildlife Federation, creating new policy guidance for development of a key regional transportation corridor, multiple development agreements and a community facilities district to finance more than $100M of public infrastructure.
• Negotiated and secured approval of the first use of a Revitalization District, a special taxing district, for a master-planned residential community in Cave Creek, Arizona.
• Actively works with multiple affordable housing developers in municipalities across the Phoenix metro area to deliver diverse housing solutions for the area’s growing population base.
• Managed the entitlement process for an international logistics company to develop a corporate headquarters and large-scale industrial logistics and warehousing facility in the City of Mesa.

Professional & Community Involvement

• State Bar of Arizona Real Property Section, Member
• Valley Partnership, Member
• Urban Land Institute, Member
• Urban Land Institute – Women’s Leadership Initiative, Member
• Arizona Planning Association – Arizona Chapter, Member
• Arizona Women Lawyers Association, Member
• National Association of Home Builders Professional Women in Building Council, Member
• Ladder Down, Graduate Class of 2015
• Town of Cave Creek Planning Commission, Former Member
• Arizona State University School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Former Adjunct Professor