This past Thursday I appeared before the Asheboro City Council in a quasi-judicial hearing for a conditional use permit. The city’s new template for safe hearings is worth other governments’ consideration.
No more than 10 people were allowed in chambers at one time. Only the mayor and four council members – enough for a quorum
This past week the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Koontz v. St. John’s Water District, a case lauded by property rights advocates as a “landmark ruling” and claimed by the permitting/planning communities to be an unreasonable shackle on legitimate governmental powers. It is neither.
What were the [true] facts?
The facts read differently
From the town that threw a zoning hissy fit when a farmer sold vegetables by the roadside and that had a conniption fit when a new but retro-design chrome diner was, well, too chrome-y, comes yet another one in a prolonged there-they-go-again parade. Even though courts have clearly told every other local government that the
This week the Court of Appeals decided in Union Land Owners Association, et. al. v. Union County that the North Carolina zoning and subdivision statutes did not authorize Union County to adopt an APFO (adequate public facilities ordinance) to pay for schools.
The Background
Union County is a hotbed of growth. Residential growth. Risking some
This morning I spoke in Wilmington at a meeting of Coastal Carolina Tomorrow, the local developer’s trade organization. The topic was exactions.
An exaction, roughly described, is an ad hoc payment or concession leveraged by governmental coercion. In most situations arising from real estate development,