Click here to read a fact sheet regarding ETJ
Click here to see a map of areas affected by ETJ
ExtraTerritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) is the authority granted to a municipality, town or city to plan and regulate development in areas immediately outside their corporate limits.
That's it.
ETJ grants a town the right to regulate how a section of the county is developed when it is known that this section of the county will one day in the future become part of that town. ETJ is one tool that can be used to regulate planned development and let the citizens of that town have a say in how that development occurs.
Think of it this way: Towns that have proactive planning boards and also have ETJ are much like you building a new house. If you were like most of us, our first house (or apartment) was probably a rental and was a preexisting structure. You found it and moved in, but it was what it was. It was handed to you: Take it or leave it. You likely didn't have any choice about the type of color of carpet, the color of the wall paint, the fixtures, or other amenities. You didn't really have any choice about what was next door to you or how much traffic moved around your house. You might be next to a nice housing development, or you might be next door to a fire station or hospital emergency room that produced a lot of noise at all hours of the day or night.
When you saved your money and decided to build your own house, you now had choices. You chose your neighborhood, lot location and size, and where to put the house on that lot. Then you chose what kind of house to build, the carpet, exterior and interior wall color, fixtures...you get the picture. In other words, you made informed and planned decisions on how this structure was going to look and feel. Well, its much the same with communities that have ETJ. These towns are just making informed and planned decisions to insure that any development that will one day belong to them reasonably matches the look and feel of their town. Some towns in Forsyth county--rightfully so--think that they should be the ones to make those types of decisions, and not the county commissioners.
Makes sense, doesn't it? So what's the issue? Information exists that suggests that there is much resistance to the idea of granting ETJ to municipalities like Lewisville, Clemmons, and other towns in the county by the Forsyth county commissioners. We--the citizens of towns in Forsyth county that want ETJ--propose to open a dialog with the Forsyth county commissioners to discuss the issue and persuade them to grant ETJ to the communities that desire it.
ETJ is not a new concept. David Owens, author of the publication "The North Carolina Experience with Municipal Extraterritorial Planning Jurisdiction" gives us some background on the ETJ issue:
"In the past century, North Carolina has seen substantial population growth and a remarkable transition in its urban-rural makeup. In the past fifty years alone, North Carolina’s total population has increased by 350 percent. In addition, the state has evolved from a rural, small-farm state to a predominately urban/suburban state. In 1900 only 17 percent of North Carolina’s population resided within a city. By July 2003 that number had grown to 52 percent. In 1920 no city in North Carolina had a population over 50,000. While the state still has a large number of small towns, the state’s official 2003 population estimates include 16 cities with populations over 50,000; 68 with populations over 10,000; and 318 with populations over 1,000.
A substantial amount of this growth has occurred on the urban-rural fringe. Subdivisions and shopping centers have steadily encroached upon farm fields and forestlands. Whether one views it as desirable development or undesirable sprawl, this growth has been a fact of life in North Carolina. Such fringe-area growth and associated development have a number of impacts, including:
• Increased demand for roads, water, sewer, utilities, schools, and various other services necessary to support development
• Fiscal implications for cities, counties, and landowners
• Environmental impacts, ranging from the effects of stormwater runoff on water quality to changes in air quality due to increased automobile use
• Implications for farmland preservation
• Dramatic changes in the social and cultural character of affected areas
Given the magnitude of these impacts, a critical question arises: What governmental body should be responsible for planning and managing growth in these transitional urban-fringe areas? [bolding added by webmaster] Prior to development these are generally rural areas without urban densities or services, subject to county planning and development regulation. Fifty years ago, when much of this growth was just beginning, few counties had any planning programs at all. Today more counties have planning programs, but they tend to be geared toward rural needs. Adjacent cities may eventually annex these developing areas and thus have responsibility for providing municipal services within them. However, when and how (and indeed whether) such annexations will occur often remains uncertain, creating a significant dilemma.
If a city cannot secure planning and regulatory jurisdiction until after urban densities are established, it will have no opportunity to influence how development within these areas takes place.[bolding added by webmaster] There are various solutions to this dilemma. First, the state can authorize or even mandate county planning and regulation of these developing areas. But an important question remains: Would county plans and regulations adequately address the more municipal concerns of these areas? Second is the creation of regional agencies with authority to plan and regulate development on a broad metropolitan basis. This alternative, however, has often proven politically difficult to achieve. The third and most commonly applied option has been to grant cities extraterritorial jurisdiction—the authority to plan and regulate development in areas immediately outside their corporate limits.
State authorization of municipal regulation of extraterritorial areas to protect public health and safety is well established and has a considerable lineage. In the past fifty years, states have begun to extend this idea to allow extraterritorial planning and land development regulations as well. A principal concern with this option, however, has been the lack of political representation for extraterritorial residents. The legal aspects of this issue, if not the political and policy considerations involved, were largely resolved when the United States Supreme Court concluded that federal constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection are not violated when states grant municipalities extraterritorial jurisdiction without extending to extraterritorial residents the right to vote
in municipal elections."