Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 10:41:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Brad Page
Subject: Chatham Park correction
In a previous post I referred to the Chatham Park PDD Master Plan as a Project Design Document. I had looked up the term “PDD” for the correct description for this acronym and found 56 different possibilities. In looking at the text below I see I may have made an error. Would someone correct me please?
What is most impressive about this paragraph is the issue of “vested rights..” Once the Chatham Park PDD Master Plan is approved by the Town Council the first bulldozer that appears on the undeveloped property “vests” the rights of the development in using that property as it wishes. It is then that lawyers begin to earn their fees if the developer decides to change lanes to some other more lucrative outcome on it’s behalf. It’s a question of the deepest pockets then, not the actual welfare of the people who have allowed this development.
This is why it’s so crucial to have every dirt full of land spelled out as to use, environmental impact and the social and economic impact on the surrounding community. All of this must be understood before the developer is allowed to implement any Master Plan.
“North Carolina provides for vested rights by statute and also has a common law vested right. Under the statutory provisions, a local government’s approval of a site-specific development plan, or a phased-development plan , establishes a vested right that runs with the land for two years. [i] Once a right has vested, the governing body is prohibited from taking any zoning action that would change the development as set forth in the plan. A vested right does not, however, preclude the city from applying an overlay zone or general regulations that might impose additional requirements on the development. [ii] North Carolina courts recognize a common law vested right where an owner can establish that s/he has made substantial expenditures in a good faith reliance on government approval, and that s/he would be harmed without the vested right. [iii]”
[i] § 153A-344.1, § 160A-385.1.
[ii] Id.
[iii] See, e.g., Browning-Ferris Indus. Of S. Atl. v. Guilford County Bd. of Adjustment, 126 N.C. App. 168, 171-72; 484 S.E.2d 411, 414 (1997).
For those who are interested it might be useful to go to the actual defining statutes for the State of North Carolina:
ww.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&
Thank you for taking the time to read this rather long and technical post. I am proud to be among such people.
Brad Page