About

Urban Planners & Attorneys

Kansas City | Charleston

Firm History
White & Smith, LLC is a planning and law group with an innovative, national practice. Prior to the formation of White & Smith, LLC, the principals worked together for five years at Freilich, Leitner & Carlisle (FL&C), the leading national law and planning firm. White & Smith continues the tradition that was started by their former firm: a national land use law practice focused on municipal representation. Former Freilich partner Mark White has practiced land use law for 16 years, where he developed a reputation as a leader in growth management, Smart Growth and New Urbanism. Tyson Smith has extensive experience in the public and private sector, and is a national authority on public facilities financing and growth management tools. We have a truly national focus, with offices in Kansas City, Missouri and Charleston, South Carolina.

Our Approach
White & Smith, LLC provides high quality plan implementation and urban planning strategies and tools for public and private sector clients. Our firm has consistently demonstrated the ability to work with staff, development community, citizen groups and governing bodies to develop strategies and alternatives, and to achieve consensus. This involves preparing and leading committee workshops, charrettes, public meetings, and private focus groups. Our codes have been adopted unanimously even in highly contentious political environments. Through our combination of public facilitation, expertise in substantive issues, and design experience, White & Smith, LLC has the tools and personnel to create innovative development codes, land use plans, public facilities financing techniques, and Smart Growth tools. One of our unique assets is an enormous digital library. This includes an extensive database of codes, plans, reports, caselaw, statutes, and images. We also maintain numerous digital imaging programs to provide user-friendly, readable documents for our clients.

Experience and Resources
All of our professional staff have advanced degrees in both law and urban planning or public administration. Through its combination of public facilitation, expertise in the substantive issues, and design experience, White & Smith has the tools and personnel to build a successful constituency zoning regulations, design based codes, growth management controls, and other types of land development regulatons.

Our interdisciplinary approach and emphasis on the use of technology is unique. One of White & Smith's unique assets is an enormous digital library. Our digital library contains over 80,000 research reports and other documents related to planning issues, 30,000 ordinances and plans from jurisdictions in the United States and internationally, 30,000 digital photographs of innovative development and other situations, and 3,000 urban design and planning graphics. Partnering with professional architects and urban designers gives White & Smith enormous depth in graphics production.