By Scott Perry

For decades, North Carolina conservatives have warned against distant government officials overruling local communities, weakening private property rights, and giving politically connected industries advantages ordinary citizens do not have.

That is why House Bill 765, which is misleadingly titled the “Save the American Dream Act,” deserves much more scrutiny from conservatives than it has received.

The central question cannot be avoided:

How can a conservative support this bill and still claim to be a small-government leader?

HB 765 is not law yet. It is still a proposal in the 2025–2026 General Assembly. But the bill reflects a dangerous view of government: decisions traditionally made by counties, towns, and locally elected officials would increasingly be set by state law, interpreted by courts, and influenced by developers with the financial resources to litigate.

Supporters call this regulatory reform. Property owners should call it what it is: a transfer of power.

It shifts power upward from counties and municipalities to Raleigh. It shifts leverage from residents to developers. It strengthens the rights of the property owner seeking to build a large project while weakening the practical protections of the homeowner, farmer, or small-business owner living next door.

That isn’t small government.

It is a centralized government that serves a preferred industry.

Property Rights Do Not End at the Developer’s Property Line

Supporters of HB 765 constantly talk about developers’ and builders’ property rights. Those rights do matter. The government should not arbitrarily stop an owner from making reasonable use of their land.

But what about the neighboring property owner?

What about the family whose home suddenly sits next to a high-density development, an industrial operation, a massive warehouse, or a future data-center campus?

What about the farmer who depends on drainage patterns, road access, groundwater, and the surrounding area’s continued agricultural character?

What about the homeowner whose most valuable asset loses privacy, peace, and marketability because a project was approved without adequate setbacks, buffers, road improvements, or noise restrictions?

Those people also own property.

A legitimate conservative defense of property rights must protect both the applicant and the neighbor. HB 765 instead treats local safeguards primarily as obstacles to development.

Under the bill’s approach, local governments would face tighter limits on development regulations, subdivision decisions, negotiated zoning conditions, and other land-use protections. The bill would also strengthen and extend certain development approvals, making them harder for future local boards to revisit.

Once a project has vested rights, a county may be unable to apply later protections, even after traffic, drainage, utility, or public-safety problems become apparent.

The neighboring homeowner does not have a vested right to quiet enjoyment. The farmer does not have a vested right to adequate roads or water. The family living beside the project receives no automatic compensation when its property value or quality of life declines.

The developer gets certainty. The community gets the consequences.

Local Government Is Not Always the Enemy

Conservatives are right to criticize wasteful local government, arbitrary permitting, and abusive zoning. But the solution to bad local government is not automatically more state government.

County commissioners and town councils live in the communities their decisions affect. They travel the same roads, understand the drainage issues, know where emergency services are stretched, and hear directly from residents.

Local officials can also be voted out by the people affected by the results.

A state-created development mandate is different. Legislators from distant counties may vote for a statewide rule without ever seeing the rural roads, family farms, residential neighborhoods, or flood-prone properties it affects.

When Raleigh removes local discretion, citizens lose access to their most accessible level of government.

That is especially dangerous in a state as geographically diverse as North Carolina. A land-use policy that works for Charlotte, Raleigh, or Greensboro may be completely inappropriate for Currituck, Camden, Pasquotank, Hyde, or another rural county with limited infrastructure.

Small government should mean putting authority as close to the people as reasonably possible.

HB 765 moves it in the opposite direction.

Follow the Organized Support

HB 765 has been backed by powerful development interests, including the North Carolina Home Builders Association, NC REALTORS, and the NC Chamber of Commerce.

The NC Chamber designated the bill a “key vote” and promoted it as workforce-housing legislation.

Builders and real estate professionals have every right to advocate for their interests. They are not wrong simply because they lobby.

But legislators also have a duty to ask who will bear the cost of the requested policies.

When a statewide law speeds up development, the financial gains may go to builders, investors, and landowners. The long-term infrastructure costs may fall on county taxpayers.

Residents may have to pay for:

• road improvements;
• expanded water and sewer capacity;
• additional fire and emergency services;
• stormwater failures;
• school capacity;
• utility upgrades;
• legal disputes;
• environmental remediation
• Police, Fire, Rescue & Hospital expansion

That is not a free market when private interests reap the profits while the public pays the bill.

It is corporate favoritism disguised as deregulation.

The New York Warning

North Carolina conservatives should look at what happened in New York when state leaders decided local governments were obstacles to statewide development goals.

New York’s government established a centralized siting system for major renewable-energy and electric transmission facilities. Under the current RAPID Act structure, environmental review, permitting, and siting authority are all consolidated within the state Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission.

New York’s own regulatory materials state that local permitting and procedural requirements are preempted. Even substantive local requirements may be waived when the state determines that they are “unreasonably burdensome” in light of state energy goals.

That language should sound familiar to anyone studying HB 765.

The state sets the priority. Local laws become obstacles. Developers appeal to state officials. The community may still participate, but it no longer controls the outcome.

A 2025 Times Union investigation found that New York’s centralized process often sidelined local zoning rules and left rural municipalities with little practical authority over large energy projects.

The consequences were real, not theoretical.

The investigation described Cider Solar as a project that would consume approximately 2,452 acres of rural farmland. It reported that another project would occupy more than 10 percent of the tillable land in Byron. Local officials said the projects had divided families, disrupted agricultural communities, and overridden locally developed plans meant to protect farmland.

One town supervisor said residents could complain to him, but the local government had little power to stop the project. A county planner said developers had the upper hand because state officials and developers effectively decided whether local regulations were excessive.

That is what happens when the state government decides local knowledge is merely an obstacle.

New York officials also proposed a statewide housing compact that would have required communities to meet housing growth targets and expand housing capacity around transit stations. The proposal blamed restrictive zoning and lengthy local approval processes for the housing shortage.

The proposal promised more housing, greater affordability, and economic growth, the same broad arguments being used in North Carolina.

Its most controversial feature was the possibility that state authority could override local zoning decisions when communities failed to meet state goals. The proposal ultimately faced strong resistance, especially in suburban communities, and its mandatory override provisions did not advance.

North Carolina should take note of that resistance instead of copying the original plan.

The lesson is not that every renewable-energy or housing project is bad. The lesson is that worthy goals do not justify stripping communities of meaningful authority.

Once the power to override local government is established, it rarely stays limited to its original purpose.

Today, it may be housing.

Tomorrow, it may be more solar farms, transmission lines, industrial developments, warehouses, or data centers.

The industry changes. Centralization remains.

Data Centers and the Eminent-Domain Danger

HB 765 does not directly grant a data-center company the power to condemn someone’s home or farm.

That distinction needs to be made clearly.

But the bill could reduce local control over the approval and regulation of major developments. Once a large project is approved, separate entities may have eminent domain authority for the infrastructure needed to serve it.

A large data center campus may require:

• high-voltage transmission lines;
• substations;
• water mains;
• sewer extensions;
• gas infrastructure;
• road widening;
• New interchanges.

The data-center operator may not condemn the neighboring farm, but the electric utility, transportation agency, or public utility serving the project may have condemnation authority.

The taking is then described not as a seizure for a private data center, but as a public transmission project, public road improvement, or regional utility upgrade.

This is how private development can become the driving force behind what is supposedly a public condemnation.

The property owner may be told that the project has already been approved, the infrastructure is necessary, and compensation is the only remaining issue.

By that point, local opposition is too little, too late.

A conservation-minded farmer or homeowner may lose land to an easement, even if they never agreed to sell to the original developer.

This is why land-use approval and eminent domain cannot be treated as entirely separate issues. Once state policy makes a project hard to stop, the infrastructure needed to support it can create a second wave of pressure on surrounding properties.

Conservatives Should Apply Their Principles Consistently

A conservative cannot credibly oppose federal overreach while backing state overreach simply because Republicans control the state legislature.

A conservative cannot condemn command-and-control government in New York and then repeat its centralizing logic in North Carolina.

A conservative cannot claim to defend property rights while recognizing only those of the largest and best-financed owner in the room.

A conservative cannot claim to support local government while voting to weaken the authority of locally elected commissioners.

A conservative cannot claim to oppose corporate welfare while letting private developers shift infrastructure and legal costs onto taxpayers.

And a conservative cannot claim to be a small-government leader while expanding Raleigh’s power to dictate what counties and towns must permit.

The proper conservative response is not to defend every zoning ordinance. Some regulations should be repealed. Some permitting systems are unnecessarily slow. Some local officials abuse their authority.

Revise them openly and carefully (case by case)

Establish reasonable deadlines. Require written decisions. Eliminate duplicative reviews. Protect applicants from arbitrary treatment. Make fees transparent. Allow courts to address genuine constitutional violations.

But do not use valid complaints about red tape as an excuse to dismantle local self-government.

A Better Approach

North Carolina should require major land-use reforms to meet several basic standards.

First, affected counties and municipalities should play a formal role in drafting the legislation.

Second, statewide preemption should be narrow and specific, rather than based on sweeping language that courts may later expand.

Third, local governments should retain the authority to require reasonable buffers, road improvements, noise controls, drainage protections, and infrastructure conditions tied to a project’s actual effects.

Fourth, development rights should not become permanent until the public understands the full infrastructure demands.

Fifth, the General Assembly should prohibit eminent domain not only for land where a private data center will be located, but also for infrastructure primarily required by a private data center, unless an independently necessary public purpose is shown.

Finally, lawmakers should disclose campaign contributions, professional interests, and lobbying contacts tied to major development legislation before voting.

Transparency does not prove corruption. It gives citizens the information they need to judge whether the government is serving the public or the people who helped write the bill.

The American Dream Includes the Home You Already Own

The American dream is not merely the ability of a developer to build the next subdivision.

It is also the ability of a family to protect the home it has already purchased.

It is a farmer’s ability to pass land to the next generation.

It is the ability of citizens to attend a county meeting, speak to their elected commissioners, and have a meaningful voice in what happens beside their property.

It is the belief that the government closest to the people should make decisions unless there is a compelling reason for a higher authority to intervene.

HB 765 turns that principle upside down.

North Carolina does need more attainable housing. It does need economic development. It does need clear and predictable permitting.

But it does not need to become New York to achieve those goals.

Before any lawmaker supports HB 765, voters should ask one simple question:

How can a conservative vote to enlarge state power, weaken local government, strengthen politically connected development interests, and expose neighboring property owners to the consequences and still claim to be a small-government leader?

The answer may reveal whether “small government” remains a governing principle or has become only a campaign slogan.

Scott Perry is a local business leader, writer and historian.