History

From the beginning, Family Lands Remembered has been founded on the idea that environmental sustainability and economic well-being are not mutually exclusive goals.

Ernie’s Legal Practice

• Complex land use and environmental litigation and settlements
• Large scale planning and consensus building for environmental projects
• Following a very interesting land-use case involving the establishment of the Collier County Rural Land Stewardship program, Ernie Cox saw the opportunity to work with landowners to help them protect native landscapes while still creating value.

Family Lands was created in 2006 and began working with local businesses and land developers in South Florida on an ambitious, but relatively new concept at the time – to find the delicate balance between business growth and environmental conservation.

Family Lands’ first major project was Adams Ranch Rural Lands Stewardship and Babcock Ranch Conservation Acquisition, where we discovered the ability to create agreements that were beneficial to all.

Since then, Family Lands has moved forward with a small group of clients who have been with the company for years. We generally form long-term partnerships with our clients, either literal or figurative, which allows us to take a holistic view of a project and understand how a decision today could affect a client years or decades down the road.

From Sustainable Development and Conservation with Babcock Ranch to Innovative Water Resource Development with Phillips & Jordan, our firm has always pushed forward from a solid foundation of trust with our clients.

And while many of these disciplines are rather common today, sustainable development and innovative water resources were two concepts that seemed farfetched at the time of the company’s founding – niche ideas that only a select few saw as viable growth areas. Both concepts have since become more widely accepted in Florida and abroad as the world shifts towards an environmentally sustainable future.

Looking forward, as technology brings us closer together, it seems that our needs as a society to find space is growing – places to live and learn, and relax and play at our own pace, without the noise and immediacy of all that information. That is where Family Lands thrives – helping our clients to create places where all of that is made possible – sustainable, livable communities that will be accessible to all for generations to come.