Nadia Costa

Partner

949.340.5596
nadia.costa@gvrpartners.com

Nadia is co-founder and partner at GVR, where she specializes in providing thoughtful and pragmatic guidance to landowners, developers and investors with respect to land use entitlements for a wide range of projects throughout California. Over her almost 25-year career, among other things, Nadia has successfully entitled dozens of complex, mixed-use, master-planned, and urban infill developments, including securing entitlements for thousands of single-family and multi-family residential units as well as tens of millions of square feet of commercial (including ground-up and redevelopment of mixed-use, multi-tenant indoor and outdoor shopping centers) and industrial space (including main campus headquarters, data centers, office and retail uses for international technology companies as well as expansive logistics/warehouse and distribution/manufacturing uses). In doing so, clients have consistently benefitted from Nadia’s team-oriented, nuanced, diligent approach.

Prior to co-founding GVR, Nadia served as Co-Chair of the Land Use Department at Miller Starr Regalia (in the Walnut Creek and Newport Beach offices), where she practiced as a land use entitlement and CEQA attorney for 14 years, regularly counseling clients in all aspects of entitlement processing and implementation. Before moving into the legal realm, Nadia was a social worker, with her practice focusing primarily on families dealing with domestic violence, child abuse and substance abuse, including being an emergency response worker for Alameda County Children’s Protective Services and working in several other treatment/crisis settings. In addition, throughout her career, Nadia has been uniquely privileged to bridge her professional interests through pro bono legal work, including, among others, her advocacy on behalf of an incarcerated survivor of domestic violence in her struggle for freedom (memorialized in Crime After Crime, an award-winning documentary highlighted at the Sundance Film Festival).

Education
J.D., University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (2001)
M.S.W., University of California, Los Angeles (1996)
B.A., University of California, Santa Barbara (1992)

Associations
American Bar Association, State and Local Government Section
California Building Industry Association, Professional Women in Building Council
California Association of GHADs – Board Member
Diablo Regional Arts Association – Board Member
STAND! For Families Free of Violence – Board Member
Sugar Bowl Ski Team & Academy – Board Member

Bar Admissions
California

Awards & Recognition
Best Lawyers®– Land Use & Zoning Law (2023–2024)
Super Lawyers Northern California (2009–2011, 2023–2024)
Top Lawyers in Northern California (2024)
Top Women Attorneys in Northern California (2023)
East Bay Business Times – “40 Under 40” (2006)
University of California, Los Angeles – Outstanding Academic Achievement Award