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Greensboro residents would again be able to use protest petitions in rezoning cases under a bill that passed the House 116-0 Tuesday. The measure now goes to the Senate, where passage is likely.

“The protest petition is a right that’s available to citizens of cities across the state,” Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat, told her colleagues before the vote. “We don’t know why Greensboro was exempted in 1971, but they’re the only city that’s exempt.”

When a property owner wants to change how a piece of property is used — changing from a home to a business, for example — they often have to seek permission from the city in the form of a rezoning.

Protest petitions are a tool for neighbors who object to fight that change. If 5 percent of those who own property within 100 feet of the proposed rezoning object, the City Council must vote by a 75 percent supermajority to grant the change.

In the case of Greensboro, seven of the nine council members would have to vote to change a property’s use that had been the subject of a protest petition.

House members who represent Guilford County unanimously backed the bill. In the Senate, Republican Sen. Phil Berger of Eden has been skeptical but said Tuesday that he would not work to block it. He said Tuesday he has not decided how he might vote.

“Given the momentum behind it, the most I could do would be vote against it,” Berger said.

Sens. Katie Dorsett and Don Vaughan, both Greensboro Democrats, have sponsored an identical bill in the Senate that passed that chamber’s State and Local Government Committee on Tuesday.

Because the House passed its version first, that’s the bill that would eventually pass into law.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com