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GREENSBORO - If the statewide protest petition gets revamped, it won't be because of pressure from local community groups.

That is, not until Greensboro gets what every other city in the state has.

In January, the City Council adopted a resolution asking the state legislature to allow Greensboro residents to use the protest petition, a tool that allows abutting property owners to force a stricter threshold to rezone land.

But the City Council also asked representatives from community groups and the real estate and building industry to negotiate a version of protest with which all Greensboro interests could live.

Those discussions hit a stalemate Friday, as the neighborhood groups said they want the city to have protest petition as it exists across the state.

"The protest petition needs to be restored the way it is," said Colin Kelly, who was speaking on behalf of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens at the negotiating table Friday morning.

The dead-end to the lengthy debates on the petition's merits came as a disappointment to the Triad Area Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition representatives.

"We thought we would be going back to council with a compromise Tuesday night," said coalition President Marlene Sanford.

The impact of the local discussions might be a moot point. Two bills that would restore the protest petition to Greensboro have been filed.

If a protest petition is signed by the owners of 5 percent of the adjoining property, it would take a supermajority of the City Council, or seven members, to rezone it.

The state zoning law applies to all North Carolina cities and towns except Greensboro, which was exempted in the 1970s for reasons that are unclear.

For the past year, local proponents have fought to bring it back.

The Greensboro City Council said it would ask the state legislature to remove the exemption.

But in the face of opposition from the development industry, the council also asked that locals work to create a newer, more universally amenable version of the law.

During the past three weeks, a small group of representatives from the Neighborhood Congress, the real estate industry, the League of Women Voters and the Coalition of Concerned Citizens attempted to do that.

They considered changing the number of council members needed to approve a rezoning from a super majority to a two-thirds majority, or six votes.

They discussed increasing the percentage of people required to sign the petition from 5 percent to 20 percent.

The representatives also discussed exempting zoning cases from the protest petition if the request matched the existing zoning surrounding the site.

"We had a good compromise," said Dick Franks, who works at Koury Corp. and was in the discussions.

The community groups ultimately decided that they were unwilling to ask for something less than what other cities in the state are allowed under the state law.

"We stand for citizen involvement, for bringing people into the process," said Whitney Vanderwerff of the League of Women Voters.

The community groups did agree to keep working with real estate industry representatives.

"We did not want to appear inflexible," Vanderwerff said. "We have done a lot of talking about it."

The Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, a coalition of community groups, voted on the issue Thursday night.

Although some members would be willing to adjust the current guidelines of the law, congress liaison Donna Newton said as a group they didn't want to advocate for a special exemption for Greensboro. Nor did they want to recommend something that would affect other cities, which would be outside their purview.

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com