ECC's Planning Department offers a variety of land use planning services in the nine-county region. Planning staff advises local governments on current planning issues such as zoning, annexation, ordinance revisions and related land-use issues. Staff also draws on expertise in such areas as the environment, transportation and strategic planning to assist local governments as requested. This work includes:
Ordinance Development and Updates (such as 160D Updates, UDOs, Zoning, Subdivision, Historic Preservation, Public Nuisances, Minimum Housing, Flood Damage Prevention, and other codes)
Plans (such as Comprehensive, Land Use, Bicycle/Pedestrian)
Performing Administrative Services such as Zoning Enforcement and Planning Board / Board of Adjustment meeting support, primarily for municipalities with limited staff
Planning Board / Board of Adjustment Training
GIS Mapping
160D Updates / Resources
Chapter 160D is the NC General Statute from 2019 that reorganized and modernized development regulation statutes. Chapter 160D of the North Carolina General Statutes consolidated city- and county-enabling statutes for development regulations (formerly in Chapters 153A and 160A) into a single, unified chapter. Chapter 160D placed these statutes into a more logical, coherent organization. While the new law did not make major policy changes or shifts in the scope of authority granted to local governments, it did provide clarifying language and some reforms. The deadline for compliance was July 1, 2021.
The ECC Planning Department can assist communities with 160D compliance. Communities that are not 160D compliant are strongly encouraged to contact ECC Planning Director Larry Faison at 252-638-3185, ext. 3015 or at lfaison@eccog.org.
The UNC School of Government has Chapter 160D resources available online:
Online Training Modules
The School produced a series of short training modules (online videos) to give an overview of the specific changes in Chapter 160D. Module topics include Comprehensive Plan Requirement, Legislative Land Use Decisions, Administrative Land Use Decisions, Judicial Review, and more.
Resources
Other resources posted online include a checklist of changes required for local ordinances, an update to the annotated bill, cross-over charts to compare Chapter 160D to the old statutes, and more.
ECC is now working with communities who are not 160D compliant to review their ordinances and make recommendations to help these communities come into compliance. Each community’s ordinances are different and will take varying amounts of time to review. ECC is developing technical assistance proposals for conduct these reviews based on each community’s ordinances and needs.
Communities that are not 160D compliant are strongly encouraged to contact ECC Planning Director Larry Faison at 252-638-3185, ext. 3015 or at lfaison@eccog.org