After Republicans took control of the General Assembly in the 2010 elections, hostility to the state’s municipal annexation law came to a boil.
A rewrite of the law last year aimed to give more of a say to property owners in areas that cities wanted to bring within their boundaries. Understood was that many such owners would rather not be annexed, and thus avoid tax bills.
Now that rewrite has hit a bump, as Judge Shannon Joseph of Wake County Superior Court has ruled that a key provision violates the state constitution.
More than likely, the issues will continue to be hashed out on appeal. A good outcome would be one that supports a well-established N.C. principle: that as new neighborhoods crop up on the urban outskirts, cities and towns need to be able to bring them under the property tax umbrella in exchange for municipal services.
With a strong annexation law, North Carolina has been able to prevent some of the patterns of urban blight that often bedevil places where municipal boundaries were immovably fixed many years ago.
The revised law blocks an annexation if 60 percent of the people owning property in that zone sign a petition against the change. However, Judge Joseph – agreeing with five cities that challenged the rewrite – found that to gauge public sentiment in that manner amounted to holding an election. It’s unconstitutional to have an election that’s off-limits to non-property owners, the judge ruled.
That makes sense, as did the challengers’ argument that decisions about municipal boundaries shouldn’t be delegated to a certain group of property owners. Indeed, annexations are pursued for the benefit of a city as a whole, and residents throughout the city have an interest in whether they go forward.
If there’s been a valid grievance over annexation, it’s been that sometimes the promised utility installations have been slow to materialize while the town enjoyed higher tax collections.
(Charlotte Observer)
Posted: Sunday, Apr. 01, 2012
