The Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization may have dodged a costly court fight after Gov. Pat McCrory signed Senate Bill 654, a measure relieving the MPO of legal liability regarding the organization’s Hampstead Bypass.
The Senate passed S.B. 654 on July 14 by a 50-0 margin. It requires the state Department of Transportation to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Wilmington’s urban area MPO and its members for any claims arising out if its filing a corridor map under the state’s Map Act.
Following the enactment of a 2006 law, the Wilmington MPO filed a map under the Map Act.
The Map Act, enacted in 1987, allows the Department of Transportation and other governing bodies to adopt and file transportation corridor maps, allowing governing bodies to prevent building permits from being issued on property listed in those corridors.
By preventing further development, the Map Act holds down the property value that the state DOT would have to pay at the expense of the property owner.
The Map Act has been controversial and the subject of litigation across the state.
In February, a three-judge panel of the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that filings under the state’s Map Act amounted to the taking of property, initiating requirements that the state pay just compensation to the landowners.
The appeals court case dealt with Map Act filings in Forsyth County, but could lead to similar judgments the Wilmington area lawsuit as well as other areas of the state. The DOT has appealed that case to the N.C. Supreme Court.
An attorney for the plaintiffs in the Forsyth County case said that if the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals decision, NCDOT could owe hundreds of millions of dollars to affected property owners.
Barry Smith (@Barry_Smith) is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.