While North Carolina's land-use rules are clearly superior to the regulatory policies prevalent in the northeast and Pacific coast, only Virginia in the southeast has a worse ranking than we do on this measure.
State House members continue to push for a constitutional amendment to protect private landowners’ from eminent domain seizures for economic development projects. Similar measures introduced as far back as 2006 have died in the Senate. Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, on Thursday ushered House Bill 3 through a floor vote, 104-9, and got the three-fifths supermajority...
The House higher education committee on Tuesday gave its nod to a bill decreasing the number of members on the UNC Board of Governors from 32 to 24. The measure would eliminate positions on the board as the terms of current members expire. “The intent of this bill frankly is to make the Board of Governors,...
Lawmakers began filing bills, assigned committee members, and remembered a former state representative as the N.C. General Assembly returned to the state capital after a two-week break. Democratic leaders laid out an agenda they hope the Republican majority might consider. Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake, and Rep. Darren Jackson, D-Wake, the minority leaders in their respective...
A bipartisan group of House members this morning filed a bill to amend the state constitution to prevent government taking private property. House Bill 3, the first proposed legislation filed as lawmakers returned to Raleigh today, states: “Private property shall not be taken by eminent domain except for a public use. Just compensation shall be...
Protecting the property rights of North Carolinians won’t hurt our economy. It's also an example of the proper use of state powers to limit abuses by localities.
Even with the best of intentions, politicians should neither make our decisions for us nor remove us from responsibility for them. Politicians are not our parents.
The state’s controversial Map Act could be coming to an end, as the House on Wednesday adopted a bill placing a one-year moratorium on any new corridor maps from being filed under the act. House Bill 959 also rescinds all corridor maps that have been filed, freeing property owners from development restrictions placed on them....
Katherine Restrepo on Supreme Court review of Obamacare subsidies; John Hood & Chris Fitzsimon on redistricting reform; Chuck McGrady on eminent domain reform; Nick Dranias on federal balanced budget amendment; Jon Guze on strengthening NC property rights
There is no good evidence that states imposing tighter controls on eminent domain grow slower or create fewer jobs than do states with more permissive eminent-domain rules.
CHARLOTTE — Matthews resident Neubert Purser, 87, has suffered two major blows in his life. The first came while serving his country on combat duty in the U.S. Army, on the front line of the Battle of the Bulge in Germany during World War II, when fragments from an exploding shell ripped a 4-by-8 inch gash in his body.
