In Mr. Zenger’s House Bill 765 a developer would no longer be required to follow many of a town’s regulations created to achieve the goals of a town’s comprehensive plan. The purpose of this bill is to allow developers to end run local planning and zoning authority resulting in less oversight of development and more profit for developers.
What Mr. Zenger’s Bill Would Do:
- Developers can build maximum density neighborhoods virtually anywhere in a town eliminating local government’s ability to thoughtfully manage growth and preserve community character.
- Allowing duplex construction in areas designated for single-family homes.
- After a year of “owner occupancy” an owner may turn worker housing into rental property or sell to absentee rental corporations leading to “rental neighborhoods” diminishing the property values of adjacent homeowners.
- Prohibit any regulations relating to building design elements resulting in modular cookie-cutter tract developments.
- Eliminating a town’s ability to establish any zoning or planning ordinances that exceed what federal or state governments require. This will eliminate a town’s ability to enact ordinances to protect existing neighborhood values, designate density to manage growth or enforce any other ordinances a town wishes to establish to follow a community’s comprehensive plan to preserve community character.
- Local planning reviews would be state mandated, reducing the opportunity for input by residents.
- Allow developers to sue local planning boards.
In his campaign information, Mr. Zenger says he is an advocate of local authority. Yet the bills he introduces takes away that control.
Our U.S. Constitution establishes a federal system of governance, with political power being shared at the various levels of government. The founders understood that the best way to prevent the abuse of political power was to disperse that power among many groups and many people. Those views have evolved over time to become even more inclusive of more groups and more people, but they always involved the ability of local governments to represent the interests of local residents as they consider local concerns.
So why does Mr. Zenger want to take that local control away from cities and towns and give it to Raleigh. It maybe because developers, builders and real estate companies could never get their way with local planning and zoning boards. So they go to Raleigh and Mr. Zenger for help.
To best understand why Mr. Zenger wants to muzzle local authority, take a look at his biggest contributors – not just the political action committees, but the individuals who are officers or owners of North Carolina development, real estate and construction companies.
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HB 765
Mr. Zenger’s Campaign Contributors
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