When Are Public Hearings Required
A recurrent point of confusion is when must a city council or board of county commissioners hold a public hearing. Many governing boards spend a lot of time on zoning map amendments, and those actions require a public hearing, so a notion arises that other sorts of ordinances surely require a public hearing as well. But in fact they don’t. Apart from ordinances involving land-use regulation, public hearings are required on only one other sort of ordinance – Sunday closing ordinances adopted by cities. In general, apart from actions involving service districts and authorization of borrowing, statutorily-required public hearings are fairly rare. Unless the statute that authorizes a particular sort of action requires a public hearing as a condition of acting, a board is under no compulsion to hold a hearing. (Many boards voluntarily hold public hearings in controversial situations even though the law does not require them.) Here’s a list of those statutes that I know of that require a city council or board of county commissioners to hold a public hearing:
Measure | County Cite | City Cite |
Adopting Regulatory Ordinances | ||
Development ordinances | 153A-323 | 160A-364 |
Sunday closing ordinances | 160A-191 | |
Government Structure | ||
Form of government | 160A-102 | |
Fire district expansion | 69-25.11 | |
Sanitary district creation | 130A-48 | |
City parking auth. creation | 160A-552 | |
Service District Matters | ||
Establishing districts | 153A-302 | 160A-537 |
Expanding districts | 153A-303 | 160A-538 |
Deleting territory | 160A-538.1 | |
Consolidating districts | 153A-304 | 160A-539 |
Adjusting boundaries | 153A-304.3 | |
Abolishing districts | 153A-306 | 160A-541 |
Establishing some fire dists. | 153A-309.2 | |
Establishing indust. fire dists. | 153A-309.3 | |
Establishing some EMS dists. | 153A-310 | |
Establishing res/prod. dists. | 153A-312 | |
Expanding res/prod. dists. | 153A-314 | |
Deleting territory | 153A-314.1 | |
Abolishing res/prod. dists. | 153A-316 | |
Estab. econ.dev./training dists. | 153A-317.12 | |
Expan. econ.dev./training dists | 153A-317.14 | |
Abol. econ.dev./training dists. | 153A-317.16 | |
Municipal Annexation | ||
Voluntary contiguous | 160A-31 | |
Voluntary satellite | 160A-58.2 | |
Involuntary | 160A-58.55 | |
Annexation agreements | 160A-58.24 | |
Financial matters | ||
Annual budget ordinance | 159-12 | 159-12 |
General obligation bonds | 159-57 | 159-57 |
Installment financings | 160A-20 | 160A-20 |
Acquiring college property | 153A-158.2 | |
Levy of occupancy taxes | 153A-155 | 160A-215 |
Establishing stormwater fees | 153A-277 | 160A-314 |
Special assessments | ||
Preliminary resolution | 153A-192 | 160A-225 |
Prelim. assessment roll | 153A-195 | 160A-228 |
Streets and Roads | ||
Closing streets and roads | 153A-241 | 160A-299 |
Naming roads, assigning nos. | 153A-239.1 | |
Permitting bridges | 153A-243 | |
Transportation corridor map | 136-44.50 | See county |
Transportation plan | 136-66.2 | |
Miscellaneous | ||
Economic devel. incentives | 158-7.1 | 158-7.1 |
Solid waste management plans | 130A-309.09A | See county |
Coastal area land use plans | 113-110(e) | See county |
Landfill site selection | 153A-136(c) | 160A-325(a) |
Ambulance service ordinances | 153A-250 | 153A-250 |
Location of ABC stores | 18B-801 | |
MBE goals | 143-128.2 | 143-128.2 |
If I’ve left any required hearings off the list, let me know and I’ll make the correction.
David Lawrence is retired from the faculty of the School of Government. For questions about the subject of this blog post, please refer to our list of faculty expertise to identify the appropriate faculty member to contact.