Town/City Boundaries and Annexation

Town and City Boundaries and Annexation

The revolution in 1775 established that the colony of Virginia was independent from England. A state constitution was adopted by the Fifth Revolutionary Convention in 1776, the last of the conventions that served between the end of the House of Burgesses in 1774 and the establishment of the General Assembly in 1776.

That 1776 state constitution centralized all political power in the state government as the representative of the people. The House of Burgesses had chartered local municipal governments, and the General Assembly continued to establish new counties and cities as subunits of the state government, but the power of "we the people" has never been aggregated up from the people to a hierarchy of local, state, and Federal governments.

Instead, the social contract adopted with the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788 and the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 defines the state and Federal governments as supreme. Local governments are subordinate to state and Federal control. Reinforcing this point, the Virginia Supreme Court has adopted the Dillon Rule. This interpretation of the state constitution is based on the philosophy of Judge Dillon in Iowa, who considered local government to be easier-to-corrupt than state government.

Virginia law, as interpreted under the Dillion Rule, requires a clear delegation of authority from the General Assembly before local governments are empowered to act. Civic activists may consider the smaller units of government as the bulding blocks of democracy, starting at neighborhood advisory committees perhaps, but the law in Virginia is that political power starts at the state level and trickles down to the cities, counties, planning commissions, etc.

The General Assembly, for example, controls the boundaries of towns and cities (and created the counties in the first place). Virginia towns and cities exist only as subdivisions of the state, not through any independent compact with "the people." The first three charters were granted to Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Norfolk (which was initially called a "borough"). Each charter was a unique document reflecting the circumstances of each community. The distiction between a town and city was not significant (except in terms of civic pride) until after the Civil War and the new state constitution adopted in 1869, under the leadership of Judge Underwood.

By the 1902 Constitution, in a confusing evolution of case law and legislative practice rather than by a single simple act of the General Assembly, cities had become politically independent from surrounding counties while towns remained subunits of counties. Expanding the boundaries of a town did not remove voters or tax base from a county. Incorporating an area into a city, however, meant that residents in the annexed area no longer vote for county officials nor do they pay county taxes.

Until additional revisions in the state constitution in 1970, there was also a distinction between "first class" cities (10,000 people and above) and "second class" cities (with a minimum of just 5,000 people).

Why would local governments need to expand their boundaries?

Typically a charter would authorize surveying something like 50 acres into 100 lots. After the original lots had been sold, and population had grown outside the city boundaries, expansion was often proposed via a petition from landowners adjacent to the city desiring paved streets, water, sewer, and other urban services. The additional taxes for city services would be offset by reduced utility rates, increased fire and police protection, etc. After an annexation, rural counties were no longer obliged to pay for servicing the population and acreage incorporated in the city. The process of annexation kept taxes (as well as services...) low in the counties, and allowed city officials to manage logical extensions of services and to shape development that otherwise would occur outside the city boundaries.

Why would the state be involved in annexation disputes?

An act of the General Assembly was required to modify town/city boundaries because the state legislature had created the municipal corporation in the first place. The 1902 Constitution created a mechanism for a panel of judges to rule on annexation requests and decide on the appropriate boundaries in case of dispute. All judges are appointed by the General Assembly, and in resolving annexation disputes the judges will always be aware of the political impact of their decisions.

After World War I, annexation disputes became far more common. Counties grew so fast that they developed their own urban constituency. Residents adacent to cities began to resist annexation, and county officials desired to maintain their responsibilities for developed areas. The old pattern of folding all urbanizing areas into cities, expanding the power of city officials and shrinking the population and tax base of the counties, became politically unacceptable. After World War II, county officials in Tidewater were particularly concerned about who would end up in control of the development of their region. Counties and cities engaged in complicated merger and annexation disputes, and finally established a ring of independent cities that blocked Norfolk from expanding.

What role does the Federal government play in annexation?

Since passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Federal government has examines annexation proposals in Virginia and other Southern states with a history of racial discrimination. The Federal government sought to ensure that annexations would not dilute the voting power of blacks excessively. A typical annexation of a suburb to a central city will add more white voters to the city, potentially blocking blacks for getting elected to political office. In the 1970's in particular, the racial composition of cities like Richmond was not mirrored by the racial composition of the City Councils. Blacks would often vote as a bloc, or "bullet vote" for just one or two candidates, to ensure some blacks would be elected to office. Any annexation that added more white voters was scrutinized by the Justice Department to ensre the impact on the voting rights of minorities were not diminished.

Town and City Boundaries and Annexation

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