Dear Neighbors:

 

Yesterday I told you that instead of voting on S. B. 112, the bill that the NC House of Representatives amended to abolish zoning protest petitions, the North Carolina Senate has created its own version of the bill by amending H. B. 74.  This bill does not tamper with protest petitions.  This morning the senate gave its final approval to its version of the bill .  It will now go to the house.

 

Both versions of the bill contain  a long list of provisions affecting the way state and local government agencies regulate everything from the environment to bed and breakfast businesses.  There a differences and the one of the big ones is the protest petition provision.  I can only think that the hue and cry raised by neighborhood advocates since last week has made a difference.  The question now is which version of the regulatory reform bill will pass and, when it passes, what will it say about zoning protest petitions?

 

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 1923 enabling legislation that first authorized NC cities to regulate land use by zoning expressly permitted a protest petition.  The petition right is part of the concept of zoning, the original balance of competing interests which is built into the zoning process.  From the beginning, when neighbors filed a valid petition, the rezoning could pass with only a supermajority vote of the city council.  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.  It is the existence of the petition right in the first place that causes developers to be good neighbors.  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.

 

So, this weekend, let’s redouble our efforts to let our legislators in both the house and the senate know how important the preservation of zoning protest petitions is to us.  Again, here are the three steps you can take:

 

1)      E-mail all the members of the General Assembly from your community, both in the Senate and the House.  Tell them to save your right to file a zoning protest petition in whatever version of the regulatory reform bill they may ultimately pass.  Please do not say “Vote against S. B. 112” or “Vote for H. B. 74.”  Both bills are loaded with provisions that legislators and citizens feel passionate about.  We don’t want to get tangled up in the larger debate.  Also, because the situation is fluid, we don’t know which bill will start moving or what it may ultimately say.  Our message should be “Don’t tamper with the right of an ordinary citizen to file a zoning protest petition.”  You can find your senators’ and representatives’ e-mail addresses at www.ncleg.net.

2)      Share this message with other neighborhood advocates in your community.  Post it on your neighborhood listserves and facebook pages.  Messages form ordinary people at home carry a great deal of weight with elected officials in Raleigh.  (That is as it should be, right?)

3)      E-mail Governor McCrory.  He was Mayor of Charlotte and has a wealth of knowledge about the balance of rights that is built into the zoning process.  While he probably will not veto the final regulatory reform bill, he should know about our issue.  He may use his influence to remove the controversial protest petition provisions from the legislation before it reaches his desk.  You can write the governor at www.governor.state.nc.us.

 

Thanks to you all.  Together, I believe we will make a difference.

 

Tom Miller

Durham