1.    The governing body of any city may adopt a resolution to annex contiguous or adjacent territory as follows:

Terms Used In North Dakota Code 40-51.2-07

  • Person: means an individual, organization, government, political subdivision, or government agency or instrumentality. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
  • Property: includes property, real and personal. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
  • Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
  • State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
  • week: means seven consecutive days and the word "month" a calendar month. See North Dakota Code 1-01-33
  • written: include "typewriting" and "typewritten" and "printing" and "printed" except in the case of signatures and when the words are used by way of contrast to typewriting and printing. See North Dakota Code 1-01-37

a.    The governing body of the city shall adopt a resolution describing the property to be annexed. Within seven days of the adoption of a resolution under this subdivision, the governing body shall mail, by certified mail, a copy of the resolution to the owner of each parcel of real property within the area to be annexed at the person‘s last-known mailing address.

b.    The governing body of the city shall publish the resolution and a notice of the time and place the governing body will meet to hear and determine the sufficiency of any written protests against the proposed annexation in the official newspaper once each week for two consecutive weeks. At least fifteen days before the meeting, the governing body of the city shall mail, by certified mail, a notice to the owner of each parcel of real property within the area to be annexed at the person’s last-known mailing address. The notice must inform landowners of the resolution, the time and place of hearing, and the requirement that protests must be filed in writing. The owners of any real property within the territory proposed to be annexed may file written protests with the city auditor protesting against the     proposed annexation within thirty days of the first publication of the resolution. The governing body of the city also shall mail at least seven days before the meeting, by certified mail, the notice of the time and place of the hearing to the governing body of each city, county, or township directly affected by the land area proposed to be annexed. No state-owned property may be annexed without the written consent of the state agency or department having control of the property. The governing body of the city, at its next meeting after the expiration of the time for filing the protests, shall hear and determine the sufficiency of the protests.

c.    In the absence of protests filed by the owners of more than one-fourth of the territory proposed to be annexed as of the date of the adoption of the resolution, the territory described in the resolution becomes a part of the city. When a copy of the resolution and an accurate map of the annexed area, certified by the executive officer of the city, are filed and recorded with the county recorder, the annexation becomes effective. Annexation is effective for the purpose of general taxation on and after the first day of the next January. However, the city shall continue to classify as agricultural lands for tax purposes all lands in the annexed area which were classified as agricultural lands immediately before the annexation proceedings until those lands are put to another use.

2.    If the owners of one-fourth or more of the territory proposed to be annexed protest, or if a city that has extraterritorial zoning or subdivision regulation authority over the area petitioned to be annexed protests, the city may either stop its pursuit of the annexation or submit the matter to a committee for mediation as provided in section 40-51.2-07.1.