Tonight the State Senate voted 45-0 to approve Senate Bill 419, and I’m doing a rather undignified happy dance. Approval does not mean passage. The bill still must pass the House, but approval by the Senate means it is alive for the short session in 2018. SB 419 is North Carolina’s first comprehensive zoning and […]
A recent N.C. Court of Appeals decision asked all the right questions about a zoning administrator’s authority to make discretionary decisions related to standing. And with one exception, found in the dissent, the Court gave all the right answers. In Morningstar Marinas, et. al. v. Warren County and Ken Krulik, Warren County Planning and Zoning […]
The zoning protest petition is the greatest unchecked power ever placed in the hands of an unelected citizen in North Carolina. It’s past time we repealed the statute. North Carolina’s protest petition statute (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 160A-385) grants an anomalous and unjustifiable power to a citizen who owns a mere 5% of a 100 […]