Protest petitions: Valuable or harmful? A pro/con package

A bill has passed the N.C. House that would do away with a decades-old provision for rezonings, the protest petition, which lets nearby property owners petition for a supermajority vote by a city council or town board on whether to approve the rezoning.

In this pro/con package of opinion articles, Dilworth resident Jill Walker discusses why she opposes the bill and supports the use of protest petitions. Joe Padilla of the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition supports the bill, and would like to see protest petitions scrapped across North Carolina.

Read their views in this pro/con package:

Jill Walker: Don’t scrap protest petitions, a vital tool against harmful rezonings

Joe Padilla: State should end protest petitions; they distort the public good

Learn more about protest petitions from the UNC School of Government.