Durham leaders have canceled a Feb. 24 public hearing to update the city and county’s joint development codes, attributing their short-notice decision to a 2024 state law and potential property owner lawsuits.
The Durham Planning Commission was scheduled to meet Tuesday to consider rewriting its local unified development ordinance, which details building rules in the city and county. Durham officials started this process more than two years ago with the goal of aligning its development codes with the Comprehensive Plan they adopted in October 2023.
In late 2024, the North Carolina General Assembly complicated zoning efforts statewide by passing a strict downzoning law that requires municipalities to obtain written consent from all affected property owners before reducing the density or number of uses allowed on their land. It also made owner approval necessary when creating changes called nonconformities — such as limiting future gas stations in a zone where some gas stations already exist…