The Carrboro Town Council met on Tuesday night to discuss proposed bills in the N.C. General Assembly and the current state of OWASA bill affordability programs.
What’s new?
- The council, Town Attorney Nick Herman and Interim Planning Director Tina Moon, considered three proposed bills in the N.C. General Assembly which, if passed, would affect the development regulation process in Carrboro.
- House Bill 765, Senate Bill 688 and Senate Bill 713 all focus on changing the regulatory process for developing land and limit Town power over zoning and land use.
- Moon said North Carolina is a Dillon Rule state, which means that local authorities would only have zoning powers expressly given to them.
- Herman said H.B. 765 eviscerates the powers of municipal governments.
- “I believe that what's going on here is essentially that — what the legislature is doing — is abrogating everything we know now about your general ordinance-making power, limiting your power to that which is expressly permitted by statute," Herman said. "That's really what's going on."
- H.B. 765 would also impose a specific timeline for reviewing development applications. Moon said under the bill's changes, the approving body would have 14 days to deem whether an application is complete, and after an applicant resubmits their plan, the approving body would have 90 days to finish the review.
- Herman said if an application does not meet the 14 to 90 day period, local authorities would forfeit review and applications would be automatically approved.
- “From a staff perspective, I think there are questions such as, what if you identify deficiencies as they're described, the applicant resubmits and there are still deficiencies?” Moon said.
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Mary Tiger, director of community relations at OWASA, presented a concept plan for a revised water bill assistance program and provided an overview of Care to Share, OWASA's current water bill assistance program funded by community donations.
- According to a presentation by OWASA, Care to Share provided over $18,000 of bill assistance to 84 households in 2024. Between 2022 and 2023, over $400,000 in aid was distributed to OWASA through the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program and American Rescue Plan Act allocations.
- Tiger’s proposed model would require financial support from the Town of Carrboro, the Town of Chapel Hill and Orange County to maintain consistent aid programs.
- Council Member Randee Haven-O'Donnell said it's difficult to know how people are going to slide economically and financially over the next two or three years in Carrboro and Orange County.
- "I would just ask for the OWASA staff and for the OWASA board to seriously read the pulse of the community and reach out to the community and get a good sense of what folks can handle at this time," Haven-O'Donnell said.
What’s next?
The Carrboro Town Council will hold its next regular meeting on May 6 at the Carrboro Town Hall at 6 p.m.
