Genna Yarkin

Genna Yarkin is an attorney in Holland & Knight's San Francisco office who focuses on environmental law, land use and real estate. Ms. Yarkin's experience includes due diligence, permitting and entitlements, and litigation for project proponents and agencies, including under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Her local land use entitlement experience includes development agreements, general plan, specific plan, and zoning compliance and amendments, use permits, design review and more.

Ms. Yarkin has experience throughout California with residential, commercial, mixed-use and industrial projects. She has a keen interest in housing law and is experienced in harnessing California law to benefit communities in need of housing, including the State Density Bonus Law, Housing Accountability Act (HAA) including the "Builder's Remedy," the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 330), California Senate Bill 35, AB 2097, Housing Element Law and others.

Ms. Yarkin has been with Holland & Knight since 2015 and served as the chair of the San Francisco office's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee from 2020 until the end of 2023. She is also involved in her community, serving on the Programs Committee for Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, and as a member of the board of Greens Restaurant, a nonprofit vegetarian institution that has supported the San Francisco Zen Center for more than 40 years.

While in law school, Ms. Yarkin gained federal environmental litigation experience as a legal intern in the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Environment and Natural Resource Division and served as a judicial extern to the Honorable Elena J. Duarte, Associate Justice for the Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, in Sacramento, California. She also earned a certificate in environmental law and was a senior articles editor of the Environmental Law and Policy Journal at the University of California Davis School of Law.