[Durham INC] Lawmakers may repeal process used by property owners to fight development (Fayetteville Observer)

[Ed Harrison]

Tom Miller has been addressing this potential legislation in recent emails.

Based on conversations with City of Durham staff (in recent months) and with members of Durham City Council over time, I believe that the City's position will not support repeal. That could change.

Ed Harrison

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> Lawmakers may repeal process used by property owners to fight development
> (Fayetteville Observer)
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> When landowners sought the city's permission to build an apartment complex in the Summerhill neighborhood, Fayetteville homeowners twice struck back with the help of a 92-year-old state law that allows them to protest proposed zoning changes.
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> That law was almost repealed last year, and some believe the General Assembly will try to eliminate it again this year.
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> Some members of the Fayetteville City Council say the state law offers a powerful voice to residents hoping to block unwanted uses or drastic changes to their neighborhoods.
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> Under the law, a valid protest petition means a town or city cannot rezone something without a supermajority vote. In the case of the Fayetteville City Council, eight votes would be needed among the 10-member elected board.
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> Usually, only a simple majority - six votes on the council - is needed to adopt something.
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> The law does not apply to counties considering zoning cases.
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> As it turned out, the petitions by Summerhill homeowners were not needed. The City Council in 2012 and again last fall voted 10-0 to deny two requests to rezone a mostly wooded 15-acre tract on Fillyaw Road from single-family development for an apartment complex.
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> The road is a main connector for Summerhill, which borders Fort Bragg off Yadkin and North Reilly roads. The neighborhood has two apartment complexes on Fillyaw Road, and homeowners say the road is already congested and cannot handle more multifamily development.
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> Sarah Williams, a 53-year-old homeowner on Fillyaw Road, protested the rezoning when the council held a public hearing last September. She said the road has speeders, and her home was broken into last summer. She worries that another apartment complex will invite more crime into Summerhill.
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> Williams hopes the state does not eliminate protest petitions.
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> "I think it would be an injustice, because that is taking away our rights to speak," Williams said.
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> The council will hold public hearings on rezoning cases, regardless of a protest petition, if someone affected by a proposed rezoning objects to it. Property owners within a 500-foot radius of the zoning site are notified by mail of the public hearing.
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> Craig Harmon, a Fayetteville senior planner, said only five valid protest petitions have been filed since 2011, and two of them involved the same site on Fillyaw Road.
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> "We don't get many of them," he said.
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> Harmon said when someone worried about a proposed rezoning asks about his or her options, he will tell them about protest petitions.
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> State Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, said the House last year voted in a bipartisan fashion in favor of an amendment to repeal the protest petition law as part of a broader regulatory reform act of 2014. That amendment, however, was not included in the final version of the reform act, so protest petitions remained on the books.
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> Glazier said he expects the House to vote again this year to repeal the law or reform it in some way.
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> "There are many who view it as an anachronistic procedure meant to protect neighborhoods at a time when decisions could be made less transparently and more quickly, without public knowledge or coverage or input," Glazier said, referring to when the protest petition law was passed in 1923.
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> Glazier said many people argue that times have changed and protest petitions can be misused by a few people to stop a project that might otherwise be needed or sought by many other residents.
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> State Rep. John Szoka, the Republican chairman of the Cumberland County delegation, could not be reached for this story.
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> Others who follow the legislature say they, too, expect an effort to eliminate the law or reform it. The experts include policymakers at the N.C. League of Municipalities, which lobbies for cities and towns, and David Owens, a public law and government professor at the UNC School of Government in Chapel Hill.
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> "I do not know what will happen this year, but I have heard it is likely that another bill to eliminate the protest petition is likely to at least be filed," Owens said in an email.
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> Another possibility, Owens said, is a bill to revise the statute to make it a little more difficult for a protest petition to be valid or to reduce the supermajority vote stipulation, or both.
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> Protest petitions are not often invoked in North Carolina rezoning cases. In a 2006 School of Government survey, two-thirds of the responding cities reported no protest petitions had been filed in the previous year. They were more common in larger cities, with 71 percent of cities with more than 25,000 residents having received one or more protest petitions in the past year, the 2006 study said.
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> Some people hope the protest petition is banished.
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> "It creates an unfair playing field," said Fayetteville lawyer Thomas Neville, who represents the property owner who wants to rezone Fillyaw Road for apartments.
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> Neville did not know whether his client, the heirs of the late Kenneth A. McKethan Jr., will try again for conditional rezoning of the property for a development that might win more council support. But, Neville said, repealing the protest petition could be a factor in that decision.
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> Mayor Nat Robertson and some city councilmen who are familiar with it say they hope the legislature keeps the protest petition.
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> "I think it's a good tool for single-family home neighborhoods," Councilman Ted Mohn said. "Here in Fayetteville, we have excess of properties already zoned for things other than single-family homes."
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> Councilman Chalmers McDougald, who represents Summerhill and joined the council last year, agreed.
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> "It is important for homeowners to have a sense and feel of security in the place they call home," McDougald said in an email. "In Fayetteville, apartments are invading our established communities. While this may not be a bad thing for the growth of the city, it is oftentimes viewed by established communities as an infringement on security, property values and future livability in their homes."
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> Staff writer Andrew Barksdale can be reached at barksdalea at fayobserver.com or 486-3565.
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> (Fayetteville Observer)
> By Andrew Barksdale Staff writer
> March 4, 2015 Updated 3 hours ago 
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