This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Kelly Kenoyer: I'm here with Ray Gronberg, the editor of the North Carolina Tribune. Thank you so much for joining us.
Ray Gronberg: Thank you, Kelly.
Kelly Kenoyer: So, tell me a little bit about House Bill 765: I hear it's dead. So, how did it die?
Ray: House Bill 765 is dead in that name, it is now -several of its ideas are now incorporated in Senate Bill 205, which is on the move in the North Carolina House.
Kelly: So, Bill 765, was much feared by local government bodies because it would have allowed developers to sue city councils and county commissions for their land use decisions. There were other provisions in it as well that I think had a lot of advocates worried, and a lot of local governments worried. So can you tell me what has made it into the new version?
Ray: I think the most important thing that is now in 205, is that they're going to say that if you don't need rezoning to do a housing project, that project needs to be a staff-only approval, not an elected official approval that goes to a Board of County Commissioners or a city council or town council. Sponsors like Representative Jeff Zenger of Forsyth County say they want to take the politics out of these discussions, and that when it goes to a governing body, the politics invariably enters into it because it gives a platform for neighborhood groups to coalesce if they want to oppose a project.
Kelly: So it sounds like this is meant to kind of stop NIMBYs from stopping projects that should be permitted by right.
Ray: That is correct.
Kelly: I guess I'm curious if there were other significant provisions that made it back into the 205 bill that are worth noting here.
Ray: The bill reflects the interest of folks like Representative Zenger, the North Carolina Home Builders Association, to have a series of shot clocks for permit review decisions. You know, quote, unquote "shot clocks." We here in North Carolina, we love our basketball. So they're adapting the concept, basically giving reviewers a deadline for completing their work. So town or county has 90 days to act on the application: if they don't act on it, and within that time frame, it's approved by default.
Kelly: So I'm curious how local governments are reacting so far to 205, I know that there was a lot of pushback against 765 and a lot of local governments that have passed resolutions opposing this bill.
Ray: Yeah, there have been a number of towns and maybe some counties as well, but mostly towns around the state, that have passed resolutions against 765 asking their legislators not to support it. I don't know that they're any happier about 205, necessarily, than they were about 765 because there's still, you know, there's still a lot of stuff in there that affects very much the way they do things.
Another provision, for example, would say that if you reject the zoning or application, or a permit application, ordinarily there's a cooling-off period. Could be a year before you can refile for that property. 205, as written, would ban those cooling-off periods so that developers would be able to come right back in with another application and keep the conversation going. There was a hearing with House Regulatory Reform Wednesday morning, and there were folks from various town governments there saying that this, you know, this bill is still not fully baked from their perspective. They just, they don't like it really any better than they like 765.
Kelly: So, we've talked a bit about who's opposing it. Yes, local governments. And then I'm curious who is pushing this bill. It sounds like business interests in particular. But are there any particular organizations that you think are worth noting here?
Ray: North Carolina Home Builders Association, North Carolina Realtors and the NC Chamber. These groups have all been involved this year in a report that was released earlier this year on the depth of the state's housing shortage, that we're in excess of 700,000 units short of what we're going to need to meet demand going forward, and also just raising questions about the general affordability of homes, The price of homes, single family townhouse et cetera, even rental units has just been skyrocketing in recent years.
Kelly: Absolutely. Well, Ray Gronberg, editor of the North Carolina Tribune, thank you so much for joining us.
Ray: Yeah. Thank you. Kelly.
