Imagine this: You live in a small, close-knit community in rural North Carolina, outside the limits of the neighboring city or town. Your family has been on this land for generations as it has passed down from parent to child. You don’t have much money, but you make do, and taxes aren’t much. You live a happy life.

Now imagine this: One day, someone knocks on your door and tells you that yesterday, the General Assembly decided to annex your neighborhood into the town next-door. No one asked your permission or advice, or heck, even told you in advance that now, you’re part of that city. On top of it all, you have to start paying city taxes in addition to the county, state, and federal taxes you already pay.

Okay, not so bad? Wait, there’s more: Because the NC legislature gave your neighborhood to the city (who’d long been after that area to send some developers in), the city doesn’t have to follow the usual rules about providing you municipal services. You’re paying taxes, but the city isn’t giving you running water, sewer systems, trash collection, paved roads, or street lights. And there is no law forcing the city to every do so.

Pissed? Yeah. So are the residents of newly legislatively-annexed communities all over North Carolina, such as the people of the Brandy Creek neighborhood, who are the new residents of Roanoke Rapids.

Cities are creatures of the legislature, and the General Assembly delegates authority to them to do the things they do. Cities have a great amount of flexibility in determining their own borders and can make city ordinances to annex areas into their municipal boundaries. This process is called “involuntary annexation.” It’s allowed by statute (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 160A-36) and it has certain requirements regarding the annexed area’s borders and population density. Before annexing land this way, the town has to enact a Resolution of Intent, hold public meetings to discuss the issue and inform affected citizens, and create a detailed plan of how it plans to extend water, sewer, fire, police, and other services into the area to bring the newly annexed area up to the same level of service as the rest of the town.

Sounds okay, right? Sure. North Carolina courts have described this as a kind of equitable balancing – in return for paying taxes to the city, the residents of the newly annexed area should receive all these services. Parkwood Ass’n v. City of Durham, 124 N.C. App. 603 (1989). Fair enough.

But what happens too often to be coincidence, cities who want to annex areas that do not fit the requirements for involuntary annexation opt for a the second of five ways that a territory can be added into a city’s corporate limits – Legislative Annexation. Translation? Cities use an Act of the General Assembly to annex land, including residential areas, into their boundaries….without making any plans or having any obligation to provide those residents with municipal services. The sneaks.

I’m not saying that legislative annexation is all bad. It’s an efficient way to annex tracts of land to a city without going through the hassle of involuntary annexation (with all of its stringent requirements) or voluntary annexation (which requires the approval of 100% of the landowners).

But legislative annexation isn’t meant to be used to annex residential areas because it does not afford them the protection that they deserve. That’s why the involuntary annexation procedure has so many service requirements – because that’s the procedure cities are supposed to use for residential areas. But the service requirements that apply to involuntary annexation apply only to involuntary annexation – not to legislatively or voluntarily annexed areas. Piedmont Ford Truck Sales, Inc. v. City of Greensboro, 324 N.C. 499 (1989)

It’s sneaky, as I’ve no doubt mentioned, and it’s immoral. Fine, it may make financial sense – sewer and water lines don’t come cheap – but just because it’s justifiable “good business” doesn’t make it right. (same with municipal underbounding - but that’s a blog-rant for another day).

And, of course, there is a race and class element to this as well. Rural areas that face these problems are often low-income or minority populated. Because the areas are rural and outside the city boundaries, they are underdeveloped…so obviously, it would cost more to extend sewer lines to those areas. But it just leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth and plays the same tape of de facto historic exclusion.

Who’s at fault? I place the blame on two primary parties: (1) the cities and towns who request the NC General Assembly to legislatively annex these areas, without themselves providing a service plan to the residents, and (2) the General Assembly legislators who let cities and towns get away with this and who draft bills that ignore the residents who live in the area.

Possible solution? Firstly, the General Assembly shouldn’t let itself be led blindly into action by a request from a city or town. In Piedmont, the GA legislatively annexed a residential area (that didn’t meet the involuntary annexation requirements) but wrote into the bill specific requirements and methods by which the town had to provide municipal services to the area. This should be the norm for every bill which annexes residential areas into a town.

The GA seems to have recognized that there is a problem enough to establish North Carolina’s first Joint Legislative Study Commission on Municipal Annexation. (H2431 (2007)) The key to coming to any good conclusions is that all voices are heard at this table – not just those from city councilmen and developers, but also from non-profits and community organizations who fight against unfairly applied annexation. (Last year’s House Study Commission, now expired, proposed a one-year moratorium on annexations, but it’s recommendations were not accepted).

Secondly, the towns/cities who try to get away with this should wisen up and realize that it’s in their own best interest to treat all their residents fairly and equally. They may not have a legal obligation, and it may make financial sense to do it this way, but that doesn’t make it right.

Life isn’t about money and litigation. (Yes, I’m still a lawyer) Matters that affect people’s daily lives – their health, safety, and welfare – shouldn’t be measured by statutes and pocketbooks.

See also: N.C. Annexation Law lets cities do whatever they want and Ten Myths of the Annexation Process

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 8:45 am . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.