The Municipal Down-Zoning Prohibition
Concern:
The Town of Wake Forest is operating on an outdated UDO, and bringing the draft UDO back before the Commissioners is difficult because state law restricts municipal zoning authority. In other words, property owners have the right to say no to the re-zoning of their land.
Let’s talk about it.
In the wake of Hurricane Helene in 2024, NC Senate Bill 382: Disaster Relief-3/Budget/Various Law Changes became law. Included in the provisions for hurricane disaster relief on page 131 is “No Local Government Initiated Down-Zoning Without Consent of Affected Property Owner,” amending Section 3K.1.(a) of General Statute 160D-601(d). Under this rewritten law, municipal governments cannot approve new zoning maps to reduce certain areas’ residential minimums before receiving written, documented approval from the affected property owners.
In short, if you own land that is zoned for 3 homes per acre and the town wants to rezone your land to decrease its residential minimum (e.g., designate land for public use/0 residency under eminent domain), the town must acquire your consent as the private property owner before they can proceed with the rezoning.
The argument against down-zoning prohibition is that it hamstrings municipalities from exercising development standards, requiring officials to responsibly reach out to each individual property owner, and if a private property owner says no, then the government can’t do anything and can only work around the property.
Is this not a wonderful problem? Private property owners can now do more than attend Open Houses or respond to surveys, you can give a flat denial to the local, state, and federal governments and the government has to respect your will. Because the down-zoning prohibition returns power to private property owners, I will disapprove measures to take that power away again.