Greensboro residents deserve petition rights
How would you like to have a right under state law taken away? That is what the Greensboro City Council did more than 30 years ago when protest petition rights were taken from us. The protest petition allows for the owners of 5 percent of the property within 100 feet of a proposed rezoning in their neighborhood to be heard by the City Council. A super-majority vote of the council is required for rezoning.
Every city and town in North Carolina with a zoning department has the protest petition, except for Greensboro. Read the Dec. 21, 1970, Greensboro Record and the Dec. 22, 1970, Greensboro Daily News to see how this was accomplished.
Greensboro’s City Council will decide Wednesday on whether to endorse restoring the protest petition. This is a citizen right we have been denied for 37 years and look what is happening to our neighborhoods. The League of Women Voters, the Neighborhood Congress, Coalition for Concerned Citizens and others support the restoration of the protest petition.
If it is good for Raleigh, Charlotte, Winston-Salem and all large cities in North Carolina, wouldn’t it be good for Greensboro? Contact your City Council representatives and attend the meeting Wednesday.
Willie Taylor
Greensboro
Comments (1)
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it is a total injustice to the citizens of Greensboro that they don't have this right to Protest Petition.
Posted on January 19, 2009 11:25 AM