Overview

Chris Smith has an extensive statewide legal practice involving zoning, planning and wetlands matters with municipal and state agencies on behalf of property owners, developers, businesses, municipalities, and citizen associations. His practice includes performing land use due diligence, preparing, filing, and processing land use applications, and participating in all associated court-related proceedings. Chris is experienced in litigating land use and environmental matters, including affordable housing, exclusionary zoning and wetlands claims. He has argued a number of matters before the State of Connecticut Supreme and Appellate Courts.

Chris served on the State of Connecticut Ethics Commission (2001-2004), and on a number of the Connecticut General Assembly’s land use related blue ribbon commissions over the years, including the Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth Incentives (2002-2003); the Blue Ribbon Commission to Study Affordable Housing (1999-2000); and the Inland Wetlands Task Force (1995-1996). Chris has approximately twenty years of service on municipal land use boards and commissions. He served as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Planning and Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association (1997-2000), and as a Member of the Executive Committee of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Planning Association (2005-2024). He participated in the European Union’s Phare Programme as an educator on U.S. land use matters in what is now the Republic of Slovakia (1995-1996). Chris has also been designated as one of Connecticut’s Super Lawyers® from 2006 to the present. He is also a Life Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation James W. Cooper Fellows (2013).

Chris graduated from Providence College (cum laude) in 1980, and the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1983. He served as law clerk to the Honorable Antoinette L. Dupont, Judge of the Appellate Court, from 1983-1984.