What Happens if the Bed Bugs Bite? Public Health’s Legal Remedies for Bedbug Infestations

It is the Sunday after the big football game. People came to town from all across the state to see the local team play. Unfortunately, it turns out that several of the area hotels have been overrun with bed bugs and the alums are none too happy. Members of the media, elected officials, local government officials and the public start calling on the local health department to take action. What can the local health department do in this situation? Are there any state laws that apply? Before diving into the legal remedies available to public health officials, we should review the science behind bedbugs a little bit (no pun intended). Read more »

A Primer on Inclusionary Zoning

As part of its comprehensive planning process, a town commissioned a housing study to determine whether its current and projected housing stock is adequate to meet the needs of its local residents and workforce. The results weren’t terribly surprising. Most of the town’s service sector and public sector workforce (for example, retail workers, police, and teachers) earn less than the county’s median wage. Those workers make up a sizeable portion of the workforce, but in order to afford a home in the town, they must devote approximately half of their wages to housing costs. The housing situation for this group has not changed much over the past decade even though the town experienced steady growth during that period. The housing market has not responded to demand for housing at lower price points, even though such housing could have been constructed profitably—but perhaps not as profitably as at higher price points.

Taking this information into account, town leaders incorporated language into the final comprehensive planning document that clearly articulates a desire to use all legally-available regulatory tools on remaining developable land to increase production of housing at lower price points. This housing was called “workforce housing.” Strategies mentioned prominently include eliminating some land use restrictions, increasing the availability of subsidized housing, and inclusionary zoning. Read more »

Open Meetings and Confidential Taxpayer Information

What happens when the open meetings requirement clashes with the obligation to keep taxpayer income information confidential? This conflict most commonly involves county boards of equalization and review, but the issue could easily arise at the city level as well with privilege license taxes or occupancy taxes.  Read more »

Local Preferences in Public Contracting, Part 4

This is the fourth installment of a series of posts discussing the efforts of the City Council of Emerald City, North Carolina, to support its local businesses by adopting a local preference policy.  (You can find the earlier installments here, here, and here.)  In the last post, City Attorney Tin Man gave the City Council an explanation of Emerald City’s legal authority, under North Carolina law, to implement a local preference policy.  The Council was happy to hear that North Carolina law would permit local preferences for purchases and construction projects costing less than the informal bidding threshold, and for service contracts, and that—under North Carolina law—the City could enact a local preference policy for other contracts if the General Assembly gave them the authority to do so.  But the Tin Man cautioned them that North Carolina law was not the only potential stumbling block to instituting a local preference policy.  In this post, we’ll hear what the City Attorney Tin Man has to say about the United States Constitution and local preferences.  Read more »

Attorney General Opinion on 2010 Personnel Privacy Changes

As I have described in several posts (links to these are listed at the end of this post), the legislature’s 2010 amendments to the personnel privacy statutes affecting most North Carolina public employers raised many questions. Several state and local agencies, including the Office of State Personnel, asked the State Attorney General for opinions on these questions. This post summarizes the opinion, which is available here, and discusses how it affects local governments.

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Discontinuing Utility Services when Customer Files for Bankruptcy

Utility Jones arrives for work as a water and sewer utility fee collection agent for a local government. He is met at the door by an irate customer, Dell Linquent, who claims that her water was shut off illegally the day before. Utility checks Dell’s account records and discovers that her water account is 35 days overdue. Utility confirms with Dell that she received both the original bill and a second notice warning that, according to the unit’s utility management ordinance, service would be disconnected 30 days after the bill became due if it was not paid in full. Dell, growing increasingly angry, continues to insist that the disconnection was unlawful. She threatens legal action against the local government and Utility himself if he does not turn her water back on immediately. Upon further questioning, Utility discovers that Dell filed a petition for Chapter 13 bankruptcy about a week ago. Dell maintains that because she filed for bankruptcy the local government is no longer allowed to disconnect her utility service for any reason.

What should Utility Jones do? Read more »

Hardship, Reasonable Use of Land, and Zoning Variances

UPDATE September 2013:  The 2013 legislation revising the board of adjustment statutes affects the standards for granting variances.  S.L. 2013 – 126 repeals the reference to “practical difficulties” and provides that to grant a variance unnecessary hardship must result from the strict application of the ordinance. Moreover, G.s. 160A-388(d1) is added to provide that “(i)t shall not be necessary to demonstrate that, in the absence of the variance, no reasonable use can be made of the property.

Lola would love to expand the day-care center she runs in her residential neighborhood. The neighbors don’t seem to mind. Inconveniently enough, her expansion plans do not meet the side-yard setbacks of the zoning ordinance. She will need a zoning setback variance. The people down at city hall tell her the ordinance says that to get one she must prove that she can make no reasonable use of her property without a variance. That sounds like a pretty stiff standard to meet. Is a standard like this permissible and necessary? The answer is yes. But those who think they fully understand the law of zoning variances are either confused or probably haven’t read all of the cases.

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