HB 765, “Local Government Development Regulations Omnibus”, contains a sweeping scheme by big developers to completely gut zoning and land use planning by cities and counties in North Carolina. This bill would be more accurately named the “Bad Neighbor Bill.”
Land-Use Decisions Should Be Local
Organizations representing cities (NC League of Municipalities, NCLM) and counties (NC Association of County Commissioners, NCACC) as well as individual municipalities and counties around the state are sounding the alarm regarding HB 765. “The NCACC believes land-use decisions should remain local, as one-size-fits-all state mandates don’t reflect the unique needs and character of each county. Commissioners are accountable to their communities and best positioned to make these decisions.”
Some of the bill’s most destructive provisions include the following:
- Disqualify county commissioners and city/town council members from rezoning votes for prior undisclosed conversations or opinions (meaning any emails, conversations, or other communications with constituents or communities). This is intended to intimidate and restrict commissioners from speaking with impacted community members. Right now, we have a legislative process in which local elected officials can hear from and respond directly to constituents. This bill would convert this process into a quasi-judicial process of lawyers and “expert” witnesses in which big developers have an even greater advantage over impacted communities facing environmental or other harm.
- Mandated minimum densities for residential areas, regardless of whether this encourages urban sprawl into areas far from city or town limits.
- Elimination of conditional zoning at the rezoning applicant’s request, a process through which developers can make binding commitments to safeguards like wooded buffers or stream protections.
- Judicial review of consistency statements, encouraging developers to sue when their rezoning petitions are denied.
- New legal liabilities for counties and individual commissioners, including punitive damages, discouraging them from turning down a rezoning request even when it would damage communities or the natural environment.
- Required decisions on rezoning and site plans within 90 days, a greatly accelerated process for major development rezoning requests.
All of these changes are intended to systematically stack the deck in favor of well-funded big developers and against average neighborhoods and communities who are at risk from poorly planned or sited development. The passage of HB 765 would radically and permanently take local government in North Carolina completely off the playing field when land, water, and wildlife conservation are at stake.
