The protest petition, a somewhat obscure way for people to try to block new development near their homes, is facing scrutiny in a number of states as lawmakers fret about how difficult it is to build housing.
In the 20 states where it’s allowed, the intent of a successful petition is to force town and city councils to vote by more than a simple majority to change a property’s zoning to allow a housing development. Instead of a 5-4 vote, a nine-member council may have to approve it by a 6-3 or even 7-2 margin, depending on what the state petition law requires. Because these votes are often controversial, requiring so many councilors to back a project can be too high a bar.
Two states, North Carolina and Wisconsin, ended the right to a protest petition in the past decade, while Massachusetts made it more difficult to file one. This year, legislators in Texas, Wyoming and Illinois are trying to make it harder.
The petition option has been around as long as zoning itself, a practice that became common in the early 20th century as a way for local governments to control what could be built and where. If a city said that certain neighborhoods would be limited to single-family homes on large lots, for example, neighbors could push back with the petition if officials changed their minds and wanted to allow them on smaller ones.
“The petition concept was written into the very first zoning ordinance,” Salim Furth, a researcher with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said in an interview. “It was to make property owners confident that zoning would do what officials said it would do.”
Most states require the owners of at least 20% of the property near a proposed housing development to sign a petition in order for the town or city government to accept it, according to a 2022 Mercatus report. The distance a home or land needs to be from the development varies from 100 to 300 feet, depending on the state; in Illinois, people whose property abuts the proposed housing can protest.
A bill Texas state representative Hillary Hickland filed in January would raise the threshold for neighboring property owners to challenge a proposed change in land use from 20% to 50%.
"A vocal minority shouldn’t have the power to block the housing options that make homeownership possible for hardworking Texans," Hickland said in an email. The Republican said her bill would still provide room for neighborhood input on development proposals.
Texas’ petition law hasn’t affected only proposed changes in how individual pieces of land are developed. The law was also used in a 2019 state court case to stop zoning changes the state capital, Austin, had proposed for properties across the city. The court said the city had to accept a petition 19 property owners submitted, triggering the requirement that three-quarters of the city councilors vote in favor for the change to move forward.
“Thanks to this protest, it would be five more years before the city of Austin was able to pass its housing reform initiative,” John Bonura, an analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, wrote in a November 2024 report.
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Wyoming recently sent a bill to Gov. Mark Gordon that would increase the threshold from 20% to 33% of nearby owners. The bill emerged from a task force the state set up to look at ways to reduce regulations, according to a report in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle newspaper. In Illinois, state representative Nicolle Grasse proposed a bill in February that would reduce the share of an elected board that must vote yes on a project from two-thirds to a simple majority. That would have the effect of making a petition much less significant, since it wouldn’t force more local elected officials to support a project for it to pass.
Grasse is also a member of the village board in Arlington Heights, a Chicago suburb; last month she was one of seven members of the eight-person board to vote to rezone land to allow 25 apartments for people with disabilities. The vote required six yes votes after residents in the largely single-family home neighborhood filed a protest petition.
Scott Shirley, who like Grasse is on the Arlington Heights board, voted against the rezoning. He said in an email that he was unaware the state gave residents the option to file a protest petition until it was used to try to block the apartment development.
“I think in this case it served to ‘raise the bar’ for a zoning change that arguably could negatively impact the neighborhood,” Shirley said. “I believe the democratic process worked in this instance.”
North Carolina’s legislature removed the petition option in 2015, according to David Owens, who taught government at the University of North Carolina until his recent retirement. His department reported in a 2006 survey that 181 petitions were filed in the previous year, most of which met the 20% threshold. Instead of petitions, North Carolinians can present written statements to elected officials challenging a proposed housing development. These have no bearing on the number of yes votes required for a rezoning to pass, however.
Wisconsin followed suit and ended the petition option statewide in 2017, but allowed individual local governments to consider petitions. But in 2023 Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill that made clear that only a simple majority is needed to approve land use changes, regardless of whether a petition is submitted. Massachusetts still allows petitions for some kinds of development, but if housing is proposed, a simple majority of an elected board is enough to approve it.