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How to Incorporate Legal Procedures Undercurrent North Carolina law, a town may be incorporated only by act of the Gen- eral Assembly. The decision to incorporate a community is essentially political; the Gen- eral Assembly is not bound to any standards of population density, development, or tax base. It may incorporate an area with only a few people or with a largely rural character: it may even incorporate an area in anticipa- tion ofdevelopment, before any sort of town in fact exists. A state constitutional provi- sion does require that certain incorporations be approved by a larger than normal major- ity. Article VII, Section 1, of the State Con- stitution directs that if a community lies within one mile of the limits of an existing city of 5,000 or more population, within three miles of a city of 10,000 or more, within four miles ora city of 25.000 or more, or ~ithin five miles of a city ot. 50,000 or more. then the General Assembly may in- corporate that community only on approval by three-fifths of the members of each legisla- tive house. The General Assembly may make an in- corporation effective immediately or it may first require the approval of the area's resi- dents. The decision whether to require voter approval rests with the General Assembly: local voters have no inherent constitutional right to approve an incorporation. Ifa community wishes to be incorporated by the General Assembly. its leaders should get in touch with the legislators who repre- sent the community in the General Assem- bly. It' those legislators will introduce .and support the bill incorporating the communi- ty. it should pass with no difficulty, even ifa three-fifths vote is necessary under the con- stitutional requirement mentioned above. Practical Concerns The backers of an incorporation pro- posal will normally need to make a few important policy decisions about the bound- aries of the proposed town and its govern- ment and obtain a few points of informa- tion. First, they need to determine the tentative town limits, both as a matter of information for the community itself and as a basis for the legal documents incorporating the town. In some instances the boundaries must be surveyed. Second, once the boundaries are set, the total value of taxable property within the proposed town must be determined. This information is essential to estimating the financial implications of incorporation. The county tax supervisor's office can supply these figures. 4 INCORPORATION OF A NORTH CAROLINA TOWN, David M. Lawrence, Institute of Government, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1982.