This Week/Next Week at City Hall -- January 1, 2018

This Week/Next Week at City Hall – January 1, 2018

Community SCALE wants you to be aware of what’s happened/what’s coming up at City Hall each week.  

• Please feel free to forward this email.  If someone forwarded it to you and you want to be added to our email list, please email communityscale@gmail.com
• Here are some of the events planned for the coming weeks.  It’s always helpful to have community members attend to show interest in these topics, ask questions, etc.  If you plan to attend any of these meetings, we’ll be glad to include your meeting summary in future articles.

Week of January 1 – what’s coming up

Tuesday, 1/2

• 1pm & 7pm – City Council meetings, agenda includes
• Planning Commission Report
• Rezoning Z-33-17: North Hills NCOD, in the area bounded by Northbrook Drive, Tyrell Road, I-440, Lassiter Mill Road, and Gates Street (Midtown CAC)
• Z-19-17 Rock Quarry Road, at the southeast corner of its intersection with Sunnybrook Road (South CAC)
• Z-30-17 Oberlin Village HOD-G, east and west of Oberlin Road between Wade Avenue and Bedford Avenue (Hillsborough and Wade CACs)
• Z-26-17: Six Forks Road, at the southwest corner of its intersection with Shelley Road (Midtown CAC)
• Rezoning Z-13-17: Old Milburnie Road, on its east side, north and south of its intersection with Old Barbee Lane (Northeast CAC)
• Rezoning Z-20-17: Leesville Road, at the southeast corner of its intersection with Lynn Road (Northwest CAC)
• Rezoning Case Z-22-17 Trinity Road, north side, approximately 300' west of Corporate Center Drive (West CAC)
• Contract Award - Body Worn Camera Program - WatchGuard Video
• Rezoning Requests and Comprehensive Plan Consistency
• Walnut Creek Wetland Park Master Plan
•  Rezoning Case Z-17-17 - 615 West Peace Street Conditional Use District
• Public Hearings
• Annual Operating Budget and Capital Improvement Program
• Petition Annexations - Various Locations
• Rezoning Z-17-17: 615 West Peace Street, southeast corner of the intersection with North Boylan Avenue (Hillsborough CAC)
• Rezoning Z-21-17: Louisburg Road, southeast corner of the intersection with James Road (Northeast CAC)
• Text Change TC-11-17: Senior Housing

Thursday, 1/4

• 3pm – Stormwater Management Advisory Commission, agenda includes
• Recommended projects and further review of proposed policy changes for the Stormwater Quality Cost Share Program. 
• Another update on the Guidelines for Land Disturbing Activities (GLDA) related to permitting, inspecting, and enforcing stormwater management; floodprone area; erosion and sediment control; and watershed protection requirements. 
• Highlights from the Stormwater Management Program budget that is being developed for the next fiscal year. 

Falls of Neuse Area Plan update – comment through January 2

Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau – In August 2017, the GRCVB began a year-long process to define Wake County’s future as a destination and to create a Destination Strategic Plan for the county. Since that time and under the directional guidance of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), the consultant retained to assist with plan development, the GRCVB team has plotted various steps to understand the true opportunities and needs facing Wake County as a tourism destination. The process thus far has involved surveying 380 different stakeholders and interviews with nearly 60 different community groups. The GRCVB now seeks the input of the Wake County residents via an online survey, which will remain live through January 31, 2018.

Information on the Resident Survey 

By completing the five-minute survey, county residents will provide valuable input on the future of the area as it grows into a more vibrant visitor destination. As a thank you for participating, residents who complete the survey can also be registered to win two great staycations, one in downtown Raleigh and the other in historic downtown Cary. The survey can be found at WakeCountyDSP.com/local.

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All meetings at Raleigh Municipal Building, 222 West Hargett Street, unless otherwise noted.  

Go to RaleighNC.gov to find links to latest meeting agendas and materials and also for updates on meeting cancellations.

Action Alert: Protest Petition | NCGA

Dear Neighbors:

The Senate Commerce Committee will meet tomorrow, Tuesday June , at 11:00 a.m. in Room 423 of the Legislative Office Building.  The agenda for the meeting has not been announced.  Because House Bill 201 (discussed below) could come up at the meeting, please stop what you are doing and communicate with the committee members.  Let them know we oppose the bill and want our protest petition rights preserved.

Thank you. If everyone who receives this message writes to the committee, we might stop this hateful legislation.

Tom Miller

Durham

. . .

House Bill 201, the bill that would repeal our right to file a zoning protest petition, has been assigned to the Senate Commerce Committee.  The bill could come up for consideration in the committee as early as Thursday, June 4.  Please take a moment and write to the members of the committee to tell them that you oppose House Bill 201 and that you want the committee to preserve the right to file a protest petition.

House Bill 201 passed the house after considerable debate back in March.  It was then assigned to the Senate Rules Committee as a holding place while the senate worked the budget and on other bills which were facing a deadline.  During that time I did not send you messages because I did not want to wear you out or cause us to peak in our efforts too soon. The legislative deadlines are past now and the senate is beginning to take up bills it has received from the house.  It is time for us to act – now, and without delay.

The e-mail addresses of the members of the Senate Commerce Committee are:

John.Alexander@ncleg.net; Tom.Apodaca@ncleg.net; Dan.Blue@ncleg.net; Andrew.Brock@ncleg.net; Angela.Bryant@ncleg.net; Ben.Clark@ncleg.net; Bill.Cook@ncleg.net; Warren.Daniel@ncleg.net; Joel.Ford@ncleg.net; Valerie.Foushee@ncleg.net; Kathy.Harrington@ncleg.net; Brent.Jackson@ncleg.net; Joyce.Krawiec@ncleg.net; Michael.Lee@ncleg.net; Tom.McInnis@ncleg.net; Floyd.McKissick@ncleg.net; Buck.Newton@ncleg.net; Bill.Rabon@ncleg.net; Bob.Rucho@ncleg.net; Norman.Sanderson@ncleg.net; Jane.Smith@ncleg.net; Dan.Soucek@ncleg.net; Josh.Stein@ncleg.net; Jerry.Tillman@ncleg.net; Joyce.Waddell@ncleg.net; Rick.Gunn@ncleg.net; Wesley.Meredith@ncleg.net; Tamara.Barringer@ncleg.net; Harry.Brown@ncleg.net

What you can do:

1) Send a short, polite e-mail to the members of the committee telling them to vote against House Bill 201.  Tell them you want them to preserve the right to file a protest petition.  I have repeated the argument for protest petitions below for your reference.  If you use any of the arguments, please express them in your own words.  You should be able to cut and paste the addresses above into a single e-mail message.

2) Share this e-mail message with your neighborhood lists and other neighborhood advocates

3) Let your own state senator know you oppose House Bill 201 if he or she is not a member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

4) Write to Governor McCrory and let him know you oppose House Bill 201.  To e-mail the governor, visit http://www.governor.state.nc.us/contact .

Thank you.  Working together we can save our rights.

Tom Miller

Durham

The Argument for Zoning Protest Petitions:

• The right to file a protest petition against a rezoning is a time honored right. 
• Under NC law, if the owners of 5% of the ring of property 100 feet deep surrounding land to be rezoned file a formal protest petition, it takes a super majority of 3/4s of the members of the city council to pass the rezoning.  
• The protest petition right in North Carolina is as old as zoning itself.  The right was part of the legislation passed by the General Assembly in 1923 giving cities the right to regulate land use by zoning.  
• A protest petition right protects a neighbor’s investment in his own property and his reasonable expectations in the stability of the regulatory environment.  It protects neighbors and property owners from sudden, capricious, and wrongfully-motivated zone changes.  
• When neighbors file a protest petition it is a signal that the proposed rezoning deserves special attention by elected officials.  
• Relatively few protest petitions are filed and they rarely cause rezonings to be denied.  But protest petitions do often lead to more thoughtful results in zoning cases and better buffering and protections between incompatible uses.  
• The levels the playing field between ordinary citizens trying to protect their homes and powerful developers who can afford attorneys and land planners to advance their interests. 
• The right to a protest petition was part of model zoning laws promulgated by the US Department of Commerce in the 1920s.  It is part of zoning law all across the country. 
• Citizens in states bordering North Carolina have the right to file a protest petition.  Why shouldn’t we?

Why you care about the right to a protest petition

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/durham-news/dn-opinion/article16515554.html

Tom Miller: Neighbor’s right under attack

BY TOM MILLER-GUEST COLUMN -- newsobserver.com

03/29/2015 8:00 AM  03/29/2015 12:00 PM

The General Assembly began its 2015 session on Jan. 28, and almost immediately neighborhood leaders were put on notice to expect another bill to repeal a neighbor’s time-honored right to oppose a rezoning with an official protest petition. That bill, House Bill 201, has now cleared the House and is awaiting consideration by the N. C. Senate.

Under North Carolina law, if the owners of 5 percent of the ring of property 100 feet deep surrounding land to be rezoned file a formal protest petition, it takes a super majority of three-fourths of the members of the city council to pass the rezoning. 

The protest petition right in North Carolina is as old as zoning itself. It was conceived as part of model zoning legislation promulgated by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1921 in the early years of President Warren Harding’s administration. The country was rapidly urbanizing, but without stable and reliable systems of land-use regulation, U. S. cities were unsafe for investment. Developers of hotels and new home subdivisions were reluctant to risk the money if someone could build a factory or fish market next door. 

In 1923, the N.C. General Assembly adopted the model zoning legislation promulgated by the Harding administration essentially verbatim. The protest petition right was part of the law here and in nearly every state. A protest petition right protects a neighbor’s investment in his own property and his reasonable expectations in the stability of the surrounding land uses. The key to effective zoning in 1923 and now has been predictability. A landowner who invests in his land trusting in the zoning governing properties nearby becomes a major stakeholder in the regulatory scheme. The protest petition right gives him and other neighbors the ability to protect the regulatory environment by making sure that the zoning on the land next door cannot be manipulated or changed without a high level of public scrutiny and support among the members of the city council. Protest petitions often lead to more thoughtful results in zoning cases and better buffering and protections between incompatible uses. 

The protest petition right also levels the playing field between ordinary citizens trying to protect their homes in a complicated system that often seems stacked against them. A developer who stands to make a considerable profit from the rezoning of his property has months to prepare before he applies for his rezoning. He can afford attorneys, engineers, lobbyists, and land planners to advance his interests. The neighboring homeowner does not have these resources. He frequently has as little as two weeks’ notice of the impending zone change. 

In that time he must consult with his neighbors and try to learn zoning rules and procedures from his city’s zoning code that may be as much or more than 1,000 pages in length. When he speaks at the public hearing before the council, the ordinary citizen is invariably overmatched. The protest petition, if he can organize his neighbors and get the necessary signatures, is frequently the only tool available to him to make the developer and the city council seriously consider his interests and concerns.

In North Carolina, protest petitions are actually submitted in very few cases. According to a survey by the UNC School of Government in 2006, out of the 2,167 rezonings reported, a valid protest petition was filed in only 6 percent of the cases. Even in those cases where a valid protest was filed, the supermajority vote requirement did not affect the outcome in most cases. But even the slim chance that a protest petition might cause a rezoning to be denied is intolerable to the North Carolina’s powerful development interests. 

During the last two sessions of the General Assembly, the N.C. Homebuilders Association and its allies have pressured legislators to repeal the protest petition right in North Carolina. Bills with provisions ending protest rights have almost passed, but at the last minute the right was restored before the final legislation was adopted. Each year, a storm of e-mail messages to legislators from ordinary citizens and neighborhood advocates across the state helped turn the tide. 

This year, the time-honored right of a neighbor to protect his home from a potentially harmful zone change next door is under assault again and the forces arrayed against it are powerful. The bill’s principal sponsor and spokesman is Paul Stam, long-term member from Apex and vice-chairman of the rules committee. In committee debate, Repr. Paul Luebke from Durham put forward a compromise amendment which would have saved the protest petition, but made it much harder to obtain. Luebke’s amendment appeared to pass by voice vote, but the committee chairman ruled that it had failed. On the house floor, a similar compromise amendment submitted by Rep. Marilyn Avila of Wake County failed in a 48-63, bi-partisan vote. Rep. Graig Meyer of Orange County then asked the House to adopt an amendment providing for a minimum of 60 days’ notice before a rezoning could be acted on by a city council – the idea being that if neighbors lose their right to file a protest petition, they deserve time to figure out what’s going on and prepare. The proponents of the bill objected to 60 days’ notice, however, and ultimately, the bill was amended to provide for only a 30-day minimum notice period. 

The bill will now be taken up by the Senate and if it passes there, the ordinary people of North Carolina will be stripped of the only advantage afforded them in complicated legal business of municipal zoning. The whole system of land-use regulation in North Carolina will be out of balance. Without the possibility of a protest petition, developers will have no incentive to be good neighbors. The rezoning process will become more susceptible to manipulation and arbitrary changes. To combat this, city zoning codes will have to be revised to improve buffers and other requirements necessary to protect neighborhoods. City planners and city councils across the state will have an increased responsibility to make sure that ordinary citizens’ investment in their homes will be protected.  

Let us hope that wiser heads in the Senate realize the importance of the protest petition right not only for fairness among the stakeholders, but for stability in the land use regulatory environment and the overall welfare of North Carolina’s cities.

Tom Miller lives in Durham.