[Durham INC] Zoning Protest Petitions - Last Chance to Act!

[Tom Miller]

Dear Neighbors:

 

The NC Senate has appointed its conferees on H. B. 74, the senate version of
the regulatory reform act.  This is the version of the bill that does not
abolish zoning protest petitions.  The conferees will meet (probably very
soon) and iron out the differences between the house and senate.  The big
question is whether they will  put the protest petition abolition back in
the bill.  We must write to the conference committee members and ask them to
preserve a neighbor’s right to file a zoning protest petition.

 

The senate conferees are Senators Brent Jackson (Duplin, Sampson, Johnston)
, Andrew Brock (Davie, Iredell, Rowan), Harry Brown, (Jacksonville/Jones,
Onslow) and Trudy Wade (Greensboro/Guilford).  The house appointed
Representatives Tim Moffitt (Asheville/Buncombe), Tom Murry
(Morrisville/Wake), Chris Millis (Hampstead/Onslow, Pender), and Ruth
Samuelson (Charlotte/Mecklenburg) as their conferees. 

 

Also fire off e-mails to all the members of your legislative delegations.
You can find all of their e-mail addresses at www.ncleg.net .

 

As I said in my e-mail message to you all on Friday, the right of a
neighboring property owner to protest the proposed rezoning of an adjacent
property is as old as zoning itself in North Carolina.  The petition right
is part of the concept of zoning, the original balance of competing
interests which is built into the zoning process.  Today, a protest petition
is valid if it signed by the owners of 5% of the band of property 100 feet
wide surrounding the property to be rezoned.  When a valid petition is
filed, the rezoning can be approved only with a ¾ majority vote of the city
council.  While 5% doesn’t sound like much, it is actually a very high bar
and the result is that only a few valid petitions are filed.  Fewer still
actually result in the defeat of the proposed rezoning.  When the necessary
threshold of neighbors actually file a valid petition, it is a signal to the
city council and the whole community that the proposed rezoning is
controversial and deserves special scrutiny.  If the protest petition right
is taken away, the whole zoning process will be out-of-balance.  Ordinary
people, the very people whose interests in their homes are meant to be
protected by zoning rules, will lose their only leverage in a process that
is often stacked against them.  Modern zoning regulations are complicated
and ordinary people who cannot afford attorneys and land planners are
alienated from the process.  The last thing the legislature should consider
is a move that will only increase this alienation.

 

Share this e-mail messages among your neighborhood contacts and neighborhood
listserves.  This probably is our last chance to affect the outcome of this
legislation.  The general assembly will adjourn very soon, but they will
pass a regulatory reform bill before they go.

 

Thanks to all of you over the last couple of weeks.

 

Tom Miller

Durham

 

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