The fate of annexation reform is now in the hands of the North Carolina Senate. While there are claims that little time exists to do comprehensive reform in this current legislative short session, plenty of time exists to take a couple of simple steps in the right direction.
The focus of annexation reform is on forced annexation. Municipalities unilaterally can force property owners in unincorporated areas to live within city limits.
In general, real annexation reform would provide annexed property owners a voice in the process, require that an area be in need of services before being annexed, and require municipalities to pay for water and sewer infrastructure.
Annexed property owners have no say on whether they’ll be annexed. Even though the property owners never have consented to be governed by the municipalities, they still can have their lives turned upside down by these municipal officials. To have real reform, there needs to be a voice for property owners.
When municipalities forcibly annex property owners, they are supposed to provide services that offer a meaningful or significant benefit to them. Yet municipalities are allowed to annex areas that don’t even need services. In many instances, a municipality will duplicate a service, such as providing inferior solid waste collection to an area that already has contracted for superior solid waste collection.
Further, property owners are forced to pay for the water and sewer infrastructure costs necessary for the municipality to provide these services. This is adding insult to injury. Not only do these property owners neither need nor want these services, but they also have to pay as much as $20,000 so the municipality will provide these services.
There are few North Carolinians who can absorb $20,000 without taking a massive hit to their financial well-being. For those on fixed incomes, such as the elderly, these types of fees may mean the loss of their homes.
Last year, the state House passed a disastrous annexation bill (House Bill 524). Not one of the above-referenced reforms was addressed in that House bill. In contrast, the bill included almost all of the 20 recommendations pushed by the North Carolina League of Municipalities, the primary opponent of annexation reform.
The bill is a great deal for the league and an absolute disaster for annexation reformers.
H.B. 524 benefits the league by providing funding to municipalities to encourage them to provide services to areas that need services. In other words, the legislature would be paying municipalities to do what they were supposed to be doing in the first place under the current annexation statute.
Dwelling on the problems of H.B. 524, though, is pointless. Trying to fix such a terrible bill would be a waste of time.
However, there are some simple fixes to the annexation law that would be easy for the legislature to pass quickly. These fixes would represent true compromise.
While a majority vote of the property owners would be ideal, the league strongly opposes any type of vote. Therefore, the alternative is to allow county commissions to approve or disapprove annexations.
The league gets what it wants by not having a vote, and property owners at least have a representative voice on annexations through their county commissions. This would be a major compromise and at least a step in the right direction.
One other simple change would be to require municipalities to pay for water and sewer infrastructure. The municipalities are the ones initiating these annexations; therefore, they should be the ones that pay for the infrastructure.
The Senate doesn’t need to get bogged down in unrelated details or take up comprehensive annexation reform. These two simple changes, which could fit on half a page, would make a major difference and would take little of the legislature’s time.
Daren Bakst is director of legal and regulatory studies for the John Locke Foundation.