MORGANTOWN – The House Government Organization committee took up the Senate municipal annexation bill Monday and eased some of the bill’s additional restrictions on annexation by minor boundary adjustment. But opponents argued it still makes an already arduous process even more difficult.
Along the way, committee counsel offered a different interpretation of last year’s legislation that makes annexation by minor boundary adjustment close to impossible.
Last year’s legislation which passed into law requires each business, resident and freeholder in the territory proposed for annexation by minor boundary adjustment to execute an affidavit of consent. If the city is unable to reach the business, resident or freeholder and obtain an affidavit within 90 days of sending the affidavit and a letter of explanation, consent is presumed.
As it came from the Senate, this year’s SB 695 adds to that by limiting a minor boundary adjustment to 105% of the existing total municipal boundary and 120% of the current area of the municipality. Only one minor boundary adjustment can be made within a five-year period.
The bill also sets up a process for decreasing the city limits, with written consent of any affected business, resident and freeholder.
Government Organization changed the bill to reduce the five-year moratorium to two years.
It also changed the requirements for decreasing the city size – members of the committee called it deannexation. The bill allowed for 5% of all freeholders in the city to petition to deannex a portion. Commitee counsel said that could be “ripe for abuse” so the committee reduced it to 5% of the freeholders in the area proposed to be deannexed.
And rather than requiring written consent by all freeholders, residents and businesses in the area to be deannexed, the new version requires affirmative objection.
Finally, the committee version restores a paragraph of current code that the Senate struck which allows county commissions to deny an application if it believes annexation could be more efficiently accomplished under another method or that that application fails to meet the threshold requirements.
It was generally believed that last year’s bill, SB 209, made annexation by minor boundary adjustment nearly impossible by granting veto power to a single person or business.
Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, said that was her view as she was questioning committee counsel on SB 695.
Counsel said she reads SB 209 differently: any person or business objecting to annexation would simply become an “island” surrounded by annexed land.
That confusion was not resolved during the meeting.
Even with the moratorium reduced from five years to two, Fleischauer opposed the bill, noting the power county commissions have over the process. “It just seems like we’re really really micromanaging.”
Delegate Evan Hansen, also D-Monongalia, opposed it, too. Annexation is controversial, he said, but it’s an important tool to grow cities. Given the level of consent required, he doesn’t know why they need even a two-year limit.
Committee chair Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, took the vice chair’s seat so he could support the bill. “I really like this bill,” he said.
He didn’t like it as it came from the Senate because of the long moratorium. He talked about a town in his district, Rhodell, that had to unincorporate and things went badly afterward.
If that happens to another town in the future, he said, the town would need some avenues to deal with fire protection and such services,and five years could be too long a wait. Reducing the span to two years strikes a good balance.
SB 695 passed in a divided voice vote, with the no votes a clear minority, and goes to the House floor.
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