In the midst of efforts to radically restrict access to abortion that have drawn unfavorable national attention, the Republican-controlled NC General Assembly is considering a legislation to repeal a tool currently held by property to curb unwanted developments that threaten to destabilize neighborhoods and erode values.
The protest petition provides that if a certain percentage of property owners adjacent to a parcel subject to rezoning sign a petition, then approval of the rezoning by a city council requires a super-majority vote of 75 percent. The supermajority requirement allows approval of rezoning requests that are considered critical for economic growth, but prevents changes that have caused significant concerns from being rubber-stamped by council comprised of members that receive substantial campaign contributions from developers. Use of the protest petition often results in concessions from developers to soften the impact of development considered intrusive by neighbors.
Property owners in municipalities across the state have been able to use the protest petition since the early 20th century, but in 1971 Greensboro was mysteriously exempted by the General Assembly. Citizens and responsive members of the Guilford County delegation restored the provision in 2009.
Now, the General Assembly is considering abolishing the protest petition across the state. The measure is tucked into S 112, an omnibus regulatory reform bill whose primary sponsor is Sen. Brent Jackson (R-Duplin, Johnston, Sampson).
Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), who led the fight to restore the protest petition in Greensboro, said she plans to run an amendment. She said Rep. Jon Hardister, her Republican colleague from Greensboro, has pledged to speak in favor of the amendment.
Check back at this space frequently for updates.
UPDATE, 4:25 p.m.
Legislation approving sweeping restrictions on access to abortion has passed its third reading in the House. When the session resumes at 4:30 p.m., Speaker Thom Tillis said the House will debate S 112, which includes the measure to repeal the protest petition. Tillis said he intends "to move the bill out before the end of this week."
UPDATE, 4:41 p.m.
Rep. Tim Moffitt (R-Buncombe), chair of the Regulatory Reform Committee, is discussing the legislation. The long title of the bill is "an act to improve and streamline the regulatory process in order to stimulate job creation, to eliminate unnecessary regulation, and to make various other statutory changes."
UPDATE, 4:45 p.m.
Moffitt passes right over Section 13.3 regarding the repeal of protest petitions, moving on to a measure to allow bed and breakfasts to provide three meals a day.
UPDATE, 4:55 p.m.
Rep. Tom Murry (R-Wake) and Rep. William Brawley (R-Mecklenburg) are reviewing some other sections. Now I understand why Moffitt didn't address the protest petition. Apparently, that one was assigned to another lawmaker.
UPDATE, 5:02 p.m.
Brawley explains the rationale behind repealing the protest petition: "This is a part of zoning that dates to the 1920s. At that time, zoning laws were very slight. And because of the wide latitude within a permission, neighbors were given the opportunity to create a need for a supermajority. That is less necessary now because with the granularity of our current zoning ordinances — CDs and so many other things that — that regulation is probably not needed. It's frequently used as a tool to get lots of concessions and run up costs, but I don't know that it any longer contributes to the health and safety of the people."
Brawley notes that the supermajority requirement sets a higher threshold than is required to override a veto by a governor, and restores zoning decisions to a simple majority vote. He adds that local elected officials can run for reelection on their records.
UPDATE, 5:08 p.m.
Moffitt reads an amendment to clarify that pending protest petitions will be honored if the legislation is approved.
UPDATE, 5:14 p.m.
Keith Brown of High Point: "It will be a sad day for any neighborhood or property owner in North Carolina who is involved in a rezoning case to not have the power of the protest petition and to see that they slipped this repeal of the protest petition without any discussion in a local government committee or any discussion at all is ridiculous."
From Doug Clark at the News & Record: "Is this the kind of regulatory reform legislators promised?"
UPDATE, 5:39 p.m.
Extensive debate taking place right now on employment protections for deputies on the NC Industrial Commission. Lawmakers have also discussed a section to regulate hotel emissions of carbon monoxide, no doubt prompted by a recent tragedy in Boone.
UPDATE, 5:44 p.m.
Tillis says there are seven additional amendments to work through before voting on the bill. "Sadly."
UPDATE, 6:09 p.m.
Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) introduces an amendment to strike the section repealing the protest petition. Harrison argues that many zoning boards are stacked with developers and "this just evens the playing field."
Rep. William Brawley (R-Mecklenburg) opposes the amendment. "There is ample opportunity for citizens input."
Rep. John Faircloth (R-Guilford) agrees with Brawley, arguing it's not fair to allow 5 percent of property owner who are neighbors to require a 75-percent supermajority vote.
Rep. Jonathan C. Jordan (R-Ashe, Watauga) clarifies that the ordinance gives whoever owns 5 percent of the adjacent property line rather than 5 percent of adjacent property owners the ability to invoke the protest petition. "Five percent! You can now change your vote from not a super-majority, but an ultra-majority.... We've all heard how the ultra-conservatives are taking over. This is an ultra-majority vote."
Rep. Charles Jeter (R-Mecklenburg), a former member of the Huntersville Town Council, said in his experience the protest petition has worked well. "It was not an onerous obstacle," he says, "because typically they were 5-0 anyway unless they were controversial. It was effectively used in Huntersville."
Rep. Alma Adams (D-Guilford) speaks in support of preserving the protest petition. "It gives citizens an opportunity to have a voice," she says. "We have a voice here; they should have a voice back home."
UPDATE, 6:10 p.m.
Harrison's amendment seeking to strike language repealing the protest petition fails by a vote of 35 to 76.
UPDATE, 7:47 p.m.
The House has voted 84-28 to repeal the protest petition across the state of North Carolina, as part of an omnibus regulatory reform bill.
Harrison, via e-mail: "I was disappointed that Hardister did not speak in favor of the amendment as he said he would. (Hardister was getting worked outside the chamber by homebuilder lobbyists.) He said he did vote for the amendment."
Showing posts with label Protest petition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Protest petition. Show all posts
Protest petition info posted on city website
It’s official: the protest petition is back in Greensboro. The NC General Assembly ratified a bill on March 5 to lift an exemption imposed in 1971. With the restoration, when enough neighbors sign a petition protesting a rezoning, city council needs a supermajority of 75 percent to approve the requested change. On Greensboro’s nine-member council, that translates to seven affirmative votes. The city has posted information about requirements and procedures for submitting protest petitions.
Earl Jones, new Guilford chair, a holdout on protest petition
Earl Jones was elected chairman of the Guilford County delegation to the General Assembly on Monday night, replacing Maggie Jeffus.
Interestingly, Jones is the only member of the House and Senate from Guilford County who declined to sign on as a cosponsor of legislation to restore the protest petition to Greensboro.
"I think it might be somewhat of conflict right now," he told me after the House session today. "I need to look at both sides of the issue. I think it would be a little premature to give everyone officially — people will come down and state both sides.... What I'm trying to say is I owe both sides a listening while I'm in session before I make a decision."
Update, Feb. 15, 6:16 p.m.: Jones told me last week that he had been waiting to hear the city's position on the protest petition, and now supports the legislation to restore it in Greensboro. He added that if the bill were to run into any trouble, he would lobby lobby for it as chairman of the Guilford County delegation.
Interestingly, Jones is the only member of the House and Senate from Guilford County who declined to sign on as a cosponsor of legislation to restore the protest petition to Greensboro.
"I think it might be somewhat of conflict right now," he told me after the House session today. "I need to look at both sides of the issue. I think it would be a little premature to give everyone officially — people will come down and state both sides.... What I'm trying to say is I owe both sides a listening while I'm in session before I make a decision."
Update, Feb. 15, 6:16 p.m.: Jones told me last week that he had been waiting to hear the city's position on the protest petition, and now supports the legislation to restore it in Greensboro. He added that if the bill were to run into any trouble, he would lobby lobby for it as chairman of the Guilford County delegation.
Greensboro council votes to restore protest petition
District 2 Councilwoman Goldie Wells emerges as the champion of the movement to restore the protest petition in Greensboro, receiving kudos from the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress in her forceful argument from the dais, before the council unanimously voted to restore the protest petition last night.
The vote included a proviso that the council would send a recommendation, to be negotiated among the neighborhood congress, the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad and the Triad Real Estate and Building Industries Coalition, to the NC General Assembly, calling for a new statute unique to Greensboro that would adjust the threshold for neighborhood opposition.
Some interesting polltics surround the issue: Wells is not seeking reelection this year, and is becoming increasingly outspoken. Her heir apparent to the District 2 seat, Triad Apartment Association Interim Executive Director Ray Trapp, was in the audience at the council meeting, but did not join the handful of paid industry advocates who took to the floor to plead against the restoration of the protest petition.
The vote included a proviso that the council would send a recommendation, to be negotiated among the neighborhood congress, the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad and the Triad Real Estate and Building Industries Coalition, to the NC General Assembly, calling for a new statute unique to Greensboro that would adjust the threshold for neighborhood opposition.
Some interesting polltics surround the issue: Wells is not seeking reelection this year, and is becoming increasingly outspoken. Her heir apparent to the District 2 seat, Triad Apartment Association Interim Executive Director Ray Trapp, was in the audience at the council meeting, but did not join the handful of paid industry advocates who took to the floor to plead against the restoration of the protest petition.
Protest petition discussion heats up
With a Greensboro City Council vote looming on Jan. 21, advocates for restoring the protest petition have ratcheted up their advocacy, and invigorated the discourse.
David Owens, a professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government, spoke at a League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad luncheon on Tuesday at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Greensboro.
Owens writes in a handout distributed to the audience that contains some salient information about the practical effect of the protest petition on rezoning processes in other North Carolina cities. Here’s what I consider to be the take-home point: “A valid protest petition can, however, affect the zoning process in an indirect but significant manner. The approval rate for projects subject to a protest petition was reported to be 52 percent, compared to a 76 percent approval rate for rezoning petitions overall. This lower approval rate indicates that the depth of opposition reflected by a protest petition frequently convinces a majority of city council to oppose a rezoning. In addition, an actual or threatened protest petition may encourage the landowner, the neighbors, and the city to negotiate prior to a vote on the rezoning, which can in turn lead to project revisions.”
The full handout is available here on urban planning aficionado David Wharton’s blog. Wharton reports that the Tuesday forum was attended by several elected officials, including NC Rep. Maggie Jeffus, who indicated she would introduce legislation to restore the protest petition.
Wharton supports restoring the protest petition, too.
“I know that TREBIC is scared to death of the protest petition, but it needn’t be. Owens’ research shows that protest petitions are used quite infrequently, and they certainly haven’t hampered growth in Raleigh and Charlotte, where they are used most often. But they have encouraged developers, neighborhoods and cities to cooperate more.
“Isn’t that what everyone wants?”
YES! Weekly’s house editorial this week calls upon Greensboro council members Robbie Perkins, Zack Matheny and Mike Barber to recuse themselves on next week’s vote on the protest petition.
Conservative blogger Joe Guarino, with whom we occasionally get crosswise on other issues, concurs.
David Owens, a professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government, spoke at a League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad luncheon on Tuesday at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Greensboro.
Owens writes in a handout distributed to the audience that contains some salient information about the practical effect of the protest petition on rezoning processes in other North Carolina cities. Here’s what I consider to be the take-home point: “A valid protest petition can, however, affect the zoning process in an indirect but significant manner. The approval rate for projects subject to a protest petition was reported to be 52 percent, compared to a 76 percent approval rate for rezoning petitions overall. This lower approval rate indicates that the depth of opposition reflected by a protest petition frequently convinces a majority of city council to oppose a rezoning. In addition, an actual or threatened protest petition may encourage the landowner, the neighbors, and the city to negotiate prior to a vote on the rezoning, which can in turn lead to project revisions.”
The full handout is available here on urban planning aficionado David Wharton’s blog. Wharton reports that the Tuesday forum was attended by several elected officials, including NC Rep. Maggie Jeffus, who indicated she would introduce legislation to restore the protest petition.
Wharton supports restoring the protest petition, too.
“I know that TREBIC is scared to death of the protest petition, but it needn’t be. Owens’ research shows that protest petitions are used quite infrequently, and they certainly haven’t hampered growth in Raleigh and Charlotte, where they are used most often. But they have encouraged developers, neighborhoods and cities to cooperate more.
“Isn’t that what everyone wants?”
YES! Weekly’s house editorial this week calls upon Greensboro council members Robbie Perkins, Zack Matheny and Mike Barber to recuse themselves on next week’s vote on the protest petition.
Conservative blogger Joe Guarino, with whom we occasionally get crosswise on other issues, concurs.
NC 28 debate: Katie Dorsett and Bruce Davis
Katie Dorsett of Greensboro, who is serving her third term as state senator for District 28, appeared at a candidate’s forum sponsored by Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro at the Greensboro Historical Museum on May 1 with challenger Bruce Davis, a Guilford County commissioner from High Point. Both candidates are Democrats, and the winner of the May 6 primary will take the seat because no Republican candidate has filed. The district encompasses most of High Point, much of east Greensboro, all of Jamestown and Pleasant Garden, and a large swath of southern Guilford County.
The candidates discussed their views of the Street Gang Prevention Act, a bill that would enhance sentences for criminal defendants identified as gang members. The legislation, which enjoys the backing of a coalition of North Carolina mayors, including Greensboro’s Keith Holliday, stalled last year in the Senate Appropriations Committee, of which Dorsett is a member.
Dorsett: “I certainly know that we’ve done a lot of discussion on gangs. I would say that some of our communities have been further along than we have. High Point was one of the first ones to have their own area in the police department to look specifically at gangs. Senator Malcolm Graham had a bill that was looking for approximately $20 billion. That got stalled. Representative Mickey Michaux had one in the house. I do say that we do have some money though. We appropriated a little more than $4 million to the Governor’s Crime Commission for grants for different communities, so it has not gone unnoticed. I know that the activity and the awareness on gang prevention has been heightened in the last several months. But we have to understand, too, that when we get into a matter of priorities, it’s a matter of how we can get the most for our money.”
Davis: “I really need the bill in front of me. I really need to know the components of the bill. And I think our legislators and all of us as community citizens need to understand about gangs. We need to understand the history of gangs, and how they have always been a part of our community. Gangs are not a new thing to our community, but we have to understand where they come from and how they have evolved, and what they are right now, so that we can, first of all, not stereotype, and not just go after everybody with — every kid who puts a mark in his eyebrow, or every kid who wears baggy trousers, because now we become profilers, and so I would have to study that bill. There’s no way I can sit here and tell you that yes, I would support it, or no, I would not, without studying the issue and also having different forums throughout our community, so that everybody understands what gangs are about, where they evolved from, and what it is about gangs. We don’t want to have a fear factor in our gangs without knowing where they come from or the issue of gangs. Certainly there’s an education component that needs to go in there. I’m not aware of all the particulars in that bill. Would love to have the opportunity to have that discussion.”
Gov. Mike Easley said of the Job Maintenance and Capital Development Fund last fall: “Never in the history of the state has anyone given a company up to $40 million and allowed them to lay off hundreds of workers.” Dorsett voted for the legislation. The candidates discussed their respective positions on corporate incentives.
Dorsett: “Well, I’ll tell you, that’s a little bit misleading, because we did come back and the governor did sign that subsequent bill, and it was pretty much the same language. So he might have vetoed it in one sense, and then he went back, and there was some refinement, and we still passed that. In terms of incentives, I wish we didn’t have incentives, to be honest. I think that it is something that we could do without and be competitive in other ways. Having said that, when I was secretary of administration [under Gov. Jim Hunt], we competed trying to get Mercedes, and we lost that to Alabama. Alabama gave away the store, and it took them a long time to recoup some of that. Our package was not the same, but we recognized that there was a limit as to what we could do, and so we cut it off. I was secretary when we were trying to get the BMW plant, and we tried to put together a package. We again gave away all we thought we could do, and yet it went to South Carolina.
“I’m saying that to say that there has to be some way of being competitive, and incentives right now appears to be the only way we can do that. I did hear part of the discussion as we talk about Skybus…. There’s some producing that has to take place. We don’t just give this money up front. So Skybus didn’t get all that money up front. They have to be able to show that they will hire a certain number of people. And there are certain things that are part of the contractual agreement. And I think you saw in the paper that most of that money that was supposed to go to Skybus — it was an unfortunate circumstance — will be recovered or has never been given. I do not believe that we can afford not to have incentives.
“And we talked tonight about how we can increase the revenue. The only way to decrease the taxes is to increase the revenue. We can do that by bringing businesses into our communities. We bring businesses into our communities by being competitive so they don’t go to Virginia or they don’t go to South Carolina or they don’t go to Alabama. So we have to do some of that. And until the federal government or somebody at another level is able to intercede on behalf of all of us, I think we will forever be finding ways to compete to bring industry so that we can increase the revenue so we can keep our taxes low. So I don’t like them, but I think we have no choice but to have them.”
Davis: “I have supported those incentives because we have lost so many jobs in Guilford County. However, I have taken another look at those incentives and feel that just as was stated, once those incentives are put in place and then we start losing those jobs that we thought we were going to get, then there’s certainly a problem there. I would certainly like to see the counties taken out of the corporate incentive business. It is a necessary evil because that’s what they are doing right now. That’s what other states have to do. But right now, at the county level, it causes our counties to compete against one another. And so you find that FedEx may go to Forsyth County, or [if] we up the ante they’ll come to Guilford County. Well, truth be told, those workers will travel wherever….
“With that being said, it will probably be good to do away with them from a state level, but, again, understand that they’re a necessary evil. We could take those same funds that we give to large corporations and offer incentives to small mom-and-pop businesses, those small businesses that are really out there struggling because about 54 percent of America’s income comes through the small businesses. They are taxed at the same rate as the large corporations, depending on the property that they have or what have you. So I think that those incentives could be used in a better way, by supporting start-up businesses that maybe promote a greener economy. I’m a small business. And you start out a small business with credit-card debt. And you're continuously trying to chase those debts, and you never get a strong hold on what’s happening. But with my small business I put food on the table for 18 families. If I had those incentives I would be able to do much better for those families right here in our community. And if we were able to take those incentives and put them into start-up businesses, small mom-and-pop businesses, that’s where the money should go.”
The candidates discussed their support for restoring the protest petition in Greensboro. The protest petition provides that if a certain percentage of adjacent property owners protest a proposed rezoning the city council is required to muster a 75-percent super-majority to approve the request. Greensboro lost the protest petition in 1971 by of an act of the General Assembly, and it remains the only city in the state that does not have this provision.
Dorsett: “I’ve heard a lot and had public hearings over in Greensboro and High Point, and they’ve been to Raleigh as well. And I have agreed to sponsor that legislation in the Senate to permit Greensboro the same as everybody else…. I don’t know a lot — I remember looking back in history when it started, and I don’t know the basis of which it started, but I do think it’s unfair for all other communities and cities in our state to abide by one law and Greensboro have exemption, when there’s, in my opinion, no real justification for it.”
Davis: “I would support it. I have no real problem with that. I would have to agree with the Honorable Katie Dorsett. We need to have consistency.”
Greensboro City Council preview
I. West Friendly Apartments
Bob Kirnard of Greensboro’s Hillside Homes neighborhood and another reader who responded to my recent story on development tipped me off to a North Carolina statute that provides owners of property adjoining an area proposed for rezoning with the right to file protest petitions. If 5 percent of the owners of a 100-foot-wide buffer extending around the subject property sign petitions, then a “supermajority” of three quarters of a city council is required to approve the rezoning.
Kirnard and his neighbors presented a sheaf of petitions on Jan. 15 containing what they said were more 221 signatures of those opposing the rezoning of property south of West Friendly Avenue near the new Urban Loop from general business to residential to allow Mega Builders to put up three-story apartment buildings. At the Jan. 15 meeting, the council voted 4-3 to approve the rezoning, with Councilman Mike Barber abstaining because of a direct or indirect financial interest in the property. On the advice of the legal department, the council postponed consideration of the matter to its meeting today. Assuming he supports the rezoning, the vote of Councilman Robbie Perkins, who was absent on Jan. 15 due to an injury, will break the impasse.
The city’s legal department received a request from Scott Brogan, who owns property adjacent to area proposed for rezoning, asking for an opinion on whether Perkins, who is the president of real estate development company NAI Piedmont Triad, should abstain from the vote today. Brogan has said he and his wife learned through their real estate agent that an agent of Perkins’ company expressed interest in buying their property at a significantly lower price than that which they had initially asked.
In a letter today to a Ms. Willie L. Taylor of Carriage Crossing Lane, Deputy City Attorney Becky Jo Peterson-Buie rendered the opinion that “there is no direct or indirect conflict of interest that would require that Mr. Perkins not vote on the rezoning matter in question.”
Now Kirnard is questioning whether the neighbors’ protest petition should require the council to approve the rezoning with a supermajority. Three-fourths of the nine-member council translates into seven votes, compared to the five votes required for a simple majority.
The statute seems clear enough in its qualifications (“To qualify as a protest under this section, the petition must be signed by the owners of… five percent (5%) of a 100-foot-wide buffer extending along the entire boundary of each discrete or separate area proposed to be rezoned.”) and ramifications (“In case… of a qualified protest against a zoning map amendment, that amendment shall not become effective except by favorable vote of three-fourths of all the members of the city council.”)
If that weren’t enough to settle the matter, David Owens, a professor with expertise in zoning and in city and county planning at the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill, provided the following analysis in 2006: “The provision in North Carolina zoning law for a protest petition, GS 160A-385(a), is mandatory for cities. The protest petition is available in all cities, whether or not an individual zoning ordinance includes provisions for it. A city many not reduce the required supermajority vote required by local ordinance.”
And yet the city of Greensboro is exempt, says Peterson-Buie, citing 1971 session law passed by the NC General Assembly.
The particulars of this strange exception are discussed on Ed Cone’s blog.
Owens himself chimed in, providing this explanation: “The General Assembly can amend the rules for a particular jurisdiction. In the case of the protest petition in Greensboro, the General Assembly in 1971 chose to exempt the city from the usual rule on protests. This is usually done by the legislature at the request of the city, and I would guess that was the case here as this provision was included in a bill making a number of relatively technical changes to the city charter.”
Retired Councilmember Tom Phillips, also commenting on Cone’s blog, said he tried unsuccessfully to get the council to lobby the Guilford County legislative delegation to repeal the amendment. “Until last year I had not heard of this and I can’t believe our citizens don’t have this tool to protect themselves,” he wrote. “As I mentioned before I couldn’t get support to even discuss changing the law. If we can’t get a champion on the council, this is a petition that could definitely get enough signatures.”
Whatever the outcome tomorrow at city council today, it appears that a movement for legislative reform is in the offing. Because of a separate development dispute, Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) told me in a recent e-mail that she was looking into the legislation requiring the same kind of ethics laws for local government that were passed in 2006 for state legislators. “I have seen members of these governing boards vote on issues that they would have had to recuse themselves from if bound by the same laws,” Harrison said. “[The Heart of the Triad proposal] seems to be a prime example, conceived of by and for development interests with very little citizen input.”
Harrison added that she has “witnessed an increasing interest in local elections by development interests (they have conquered the NC [General Assembly], now local governments are prime for targeting.” Commensurately, “concerned citizens are pushing for clean elections at the local level,” and legislation to allow a few municipalities to experiment with public financing has either been passed or is pending.
Harrison said she had not previously been aware that Greensboro was exempt from the protest petition, “but I see no merit in it if the rest of the state has similar relief,” adding that she agreed with Phillips that a good infill proposal should win the approval of the necessary majority.
“I am tired of big money prevailing in these battles,” Harrison said. “I was ashamed of the asphalt plant decision, but encouraged that good sense prevailed in the Haw River State Park controversy.”
II. Immington Village
Another rezoning and annexation request near the new Urban Loop, approval of which would allow developer Roy Carroll to build as many as 310 apartments in a gated complex near McLeansville, is off the table for the time being. The council received a request by lawyer Henry Isaacson to continue the decisions at its Feb. 19 meeting. The requests call for the annexation of 38 acres on McConnell Road, amendment of the Generalized Future Land Map to rezone property from a mixed-use corporate park to high-residential land classification and rezoning of property from a county agricultural to a city residential multifamily land classification.
III. West Wendover Avenue condominium project by SRJ Properties
A request to rezone a six-acre parcel on West Wendover Avenue allowing builder SRJ Properties to increase condominiums under construction from three to four stories was continued from the Jan. 15 meeting at the request of lawyer Marc Isaacson, whose father is Henry Isaacson. Both planning staff and the zoning commission have recommended denial of the request.
IV. Garden Lake Drive
Also on the agenda is a request to rezone property at the intersection of Garden Lake Drive and New Garden Road from residential single family to general business with conditions and to multifamily residential.
The request made on behalf of a handful of property owners would allow developer Mark P. Reynolds to build condominiums in a mixed-use retail and office complex that includes a drive-thru bank and drive-thru pharmacy along an increasingly busy stretch of roadway connecting the Guilford College area to bustling Battleground Avenue.
Requests to rezone the property have been in process since at least 2006, and one of them was denied in May 2007. The following month, the request was withdrawn, only to be slightly modified and re-submitted. The planning department has recommended approval, but the zoning commission failed to muster the six votes required for final approval at its meeting in January. The 5-4 decision by the zoning commission puts the matter before city council.
The proposed rezoning request remains unpopular in the neighborhood. Minutes reflect that 15-20 people in the audience stood to express their opposition to the rezoning at the January zoning commission meeting.
Staff comments suggest the plan differs little from the one defeated by the last city council — some of whose members have retired or been voted out of office — last May. For instance, nonresidential square footage for the entire development would decrease from 65,000 to 60,000.
“The current proposal is a three part, three zoning district proposal covering the same area that was proposed in April 2007. The intent is to create a horizontal mixed-use (commercial, multifamily & office) project in a suburban location,” the document states. “One of the main differences between this proposal and the [defeated conditional district-planned unit development infill] proposal is that an approved sketch plan is not required prior to rezoning. The applicant has removed some conditions and modified others, but they are essentially the same due to ordinance requirements negating the need for some of the previously offered conditions.”
V. Incentives for Ozark Automotive Distributors
Missouri-based Ozark Automotive Distributors is requesting tax incentives valued at $187,696 to locate a new distribution center in Greensboro that would service its southeastern retail stores. The request pits Greensboro against the Raleigh area, although the agenda item, which is signed by Assistant City Manager Ben Brown, notes that a site in eastern Greensboro is already under construction.
Ozark Automotive Distributors promises to invest $13.8 million in new machinery and equipment, $10.9 million in the purchase of a new building, and $16.3 million in inventory. The company commits to create 360 new jobs with an average salary of $29,999, including benefits worth an additional $10,220.
VI. Minimum wage proponents back to fight again
Organizers of a citizen initiative to raise the minimum wage in Greensboro to $9.36 an hour — equal to its purchasing power at its height in 1968 — are urging supporters to pack chambers to ask council members to reverse their Jan. 15 decision to deny the measure on the basis that it lacked sufficient signatures.
Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee organizers said they have collected the required number of signatures to make up for those found invalid by the city’s legal department. If true, the number of signatures would equal 25 percent of those who voted in Greensboro’s 2005 municipal election. Council members who voted down the initiative have said the signatures should instead be counted against turnout in the 2007 election, when participation surged.
Bob Kirnard of Greensboro’s Hillside Homes neighborhood and another reader who responded to my recent story on development tipped me off to a North Carolina statute that provides owners of property adjoining an area proposed for rezoning with the right to file protest petitions. If 5 percent of the owners of a 100-foot-wide buffer extending around the subject property sign petitions, then a “supermajority” of three quarters of a city council is required to approve the rezoning.
Kirnard and his neighbors presented a sheaf of petitions on Jan. 15 containing what they said were more 221 signatures of those opposing the rezoning of property south of West Friendly Avenue near the new Urban Loop from general business to residential to allow Mega Builders to put up three-story apartment buildings. At the Jan. 15 meeting, the council voted 4-3 to approve the rezoning, with Councilman Mike Barber abstaining because of a direct or indirect financial interest in the property. On the advice of the legal department, the council postponed consideration of the matter to its meeting today. Assuming he supports the rezoning, the vote of Councilman Robbie Perkins, who was absent on Jan. 15 due to an injury, will break the impasse.
The city’s legal department received a request from Scott Brogan, who owns property adjacent to area proposed for rezoning, asking for an opinion on whether Perkins, who is the president of real estate development company NAI Piedmont Triad, should abstain from the vote today. Brogan has said he and his wife learned through their real estate agent that an agent of Perkins’ company expressed interest in buying their property at a significantly lower price than that which they had initially asked.
In a letter today to a Ms. Willie L. Taylor of Carriage Crossing Lane, Deputy City Attorney Becky Jo Peterson-Buie rendered the opinion that “there is no direct or indirect conflict of interest that would require that Mr. Perkins not vote on the rezoning matter in question.”
Now Kirnard is questioning whether the neighbors’ protest petition should require the council to approve the rezoning with a supermajority. Three-fourths of the nine-member council translates into seven votes, compared to the five votes required for a simple majority.
The statute seems clear enough in its qualifications (“To qualify as a protest under this section, the petition must be signed by the owners of… five percent (5%) of a 100-foot-wide buffer extending along the entire boundary of each discrete or separate area proposed to be rezoned.”) and ramifications (“In case… of a qualified protest against a zoning map amendment, that amendment shall not become effective except by favorable vote of three-fourths of all the members of the city council.”)
If that weren’t enough to settle the matter, David Owens, a professor with expertise in zoning and in city and county planning at the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill, provided the following analysis in 2006: “The provision in North Carolina zoning law for a protest petition, GS 160A-385(a), is mandatory for cities. The protest petition is available in all cities, whether or not an individual zoning ordinance includes provisions for it. A city many not reduce the required supermajority vote required by local ordinance.”
And yet the city of Greensboro is exempt, says Peterson-Buie, citing 1971 session law passed by the NC General Assembly.
The particulars of this strange exception are discussed on Ed Cone’s blog.
Owens himself chimed in, providing this explanation: “The General Assembly can amend the rules for a particular jurisdiction. In the case of the protest petition in Greensboro, the General Assembly in 1971 chose to exempt the city from the usual rule on protests. This is usually done by the legislature at the request of the city, and I would guess that was the case here as this provision was included in a bill making a number of relatively technical changes to the city charter.”
Retired Councilmember Tom Phillips, also commenting on Cone’s blog, said he tried unsuccessfully to get the council to lobby the Guilford County legislative delegation to repeal the amendment. “Until last year I had not heard of this and I can’t believe our citizens don’t have this tool to protect themselves,” he wrote. “As I mentioned before I couldn’t get support to even discuss changing the law. If we can’t get a champion on the council, this is a petition that could definitely get enough signatures.”
Whatever the outcome tomorrow at city council today, it appears that a movement for legislative reform is in the offing. Because of a separate development dispute, Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) told me in a recent e-mail that she was looking into the legislation requiring the same kind of ethics laws for local government that were passed in 2006 for state legislators. “I have seen members of these governing boards vote on issues that they would have had to recuse themselves from if bound by the same laws,” Harrison said. “[The Heart of the Triad proposal] seems to be a prime example, conceived of by and for development interests with very little citizen input.”
Harrison added that she has “witnessed an increasing interest in local elections by development interests (they have conquered the NC [General Assembly], now local governments are prime for targeting.” Commensurately, “concerned citizens are pushing for clean elections at the local level,” and legislation to allow a few municipalities to experiment with public financing has either been passed or is pending.
Harrison said she had not previously been aware that Greensboro was exempt from the protest petition, “but I see no merit in it if the rest of the state has similar relief,” adding that she agreed with Phillips that a good infill proposal should win the approval of the necessary majority.
“I am tired of big money prevailing in these battles,” Harrison said. “I was ashamed of the asphalt plant decision, but encouraged that good sense prevailed in the Haw River State Park controversy.”
II. Immington Village
Another rezoning and annexation request near the new Urban Loop, approval of which would allow developer Roy Carroll to build as many as 310 apartments in a gated complex near McLeansville, is off the table for the time being. The council received a request by lawyer Henry Isaacson to continue the decisions at its Feb. 19 meeting. The requests call for the annexation of 38 acres on McConnell Road, amendment of the Generalized Future Land Map to rezone property from a mixed-use corporate park to high-residential land classification and rezoning of property from a county agricultural to a city residential multifamily land classification.
III. West Wendover Avenue condominium project by SRJ Properties
A request to rezone a six-acre parcel on West Wendover Avenue allowing builder SRJ Properties to increase condominiums under construction from three to four stories was continued from the Jan. 15 meeting at the request of lawyer Marc Isaacson, whose father is Henry Isaacson. Both planning staff and the zoning commission have recommended denial of the request.
IV. Garden Lake Drive
Also on the agenda is a request to rezone property at the intersection of Garden Lake Drive and New Garden Road from residential single family to general business with conditions and to multifamily residential.
The request made on behalf of a handful of property owners would allow developer Mark P. Reynolds to build condominiums in a mixed-use retail and office complex that includes a drive-thru bank and drive-thru pharmacy along an increasingly busy stretch of roadway connecting the Guilford College area to bustling Battleground Avenue.
Requests to rezone the property have been in process since at least 2006, and one of them was denied in May 2007. The following month, the request was withdrawn, only to be slightly modified and re-submitted. The planning department has recommended approval, but the zoning commission failed to muster the six votes required for final approval at its meeting in January. The 5-4 decision by the zoning commission puts the matter before city council.
The proposed rezoning request remains unpopular in the neighborhood. Minutes reflect that 15-20 people in the audience stood to express their opposition to the rezoning at the January zoning commission meeting.
Staff comments suggest the plan differs little from the one defeated by the last city council — some of whose members have retired or been voted out of office — last May. For instance, nonresidential square footage for the entire development would decrease from 65,000 to 60,000.
“The current proposal is a three part, three zoning district proposal covering the same area that was proposed in April 2007. The intent is to create a horizontal mixed-use (commercial, multifamily & office) project in a suburban location,” the document states. “One of the main differences between this proposal and the [defeated conditional district-planned unit development infill] proposal is that an approved sketch plan is not required prior to rezoning. The applicant has removed some conditions and modified others, but they are essentially the same due to ordinance requirements negating the need for some of the previously offered conditions.”
V. Incentives for Ozark Automotive Distributors
Missouri-based Ozark Automotive Distributors is requesting tax incentives valued at $187,696 to locate a new distribution center in Greensboro that would service its southeastern retail stores. The request pits Greensboro against the Raleigh area, although the agenda item, which is signed by Assistant City Manager Ben Brown, notes that a site in eastern Greensboro is already under construction.
Ozark Automotive Distributors promises to invest $13.8 million in new machinery and equipment, $10.9 million in the purchase of a new building, and $16.3 million in inventory. The company commits to create 360 new jobs with an average salary of $29,999, including benefits worth an additional $10,220.
VI. Minimum wage proponents back to fight again
Organizers of a citizen initiative to raise the minimum wage in Greensboro to $9.36 an hour — equal to its purchasing power at its height in 1968 — are urging supporters to pack chambers to ask council members to reverse their Jan. 15 decision to deny the measure on the basis that it lacked sufficient signatures.
Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee organizers said they have collected the required number of signatures to make up for those found invalid by the city’s legal department. If true, the number of signatures would equal 25 percent of those who voted in Greensboro’s 2005 municipal election. Council members who voted down the initiative have said the signatures should instead be counted against turnout in the 2007 election, when participation surged.
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