North Carolina Wrestling With Growth

"The General Assembly's smart-growth commission will recommend that local governments be given new tools to deal with growth, including the authority to enact new kinds of regulations and levy new local taxes and fees. The commission's recommendations, approved Thursday, would represent a fundamental shift in power away from the state legislature, where development interests have considerable influence. . .The smart-growth commission approved a list of broad goals that envision for a more deliberate state role in managing growth. It says the state should develop "smart growth" guidelines and establish a permanent commission to ensure state agencies live by them. It also says the state should require local governments to develop land-use plans that identify areas for future development and that those local plans be coordinated on a regional basis."