AN ACT affecting the regulation of abandoned or junked MOTOR VEHICLES IN THE CITies OF GREENVILLE AND henderson and THE TOWN OF WAYNESVILLE.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  G.S. 160A‑303.2(a) reads as rewritten:
"(a)	A municipality may by ordinance regulate, restrain or prohibit the abandonment of junked motor vehicles on public grounds and on private property within the municipality's ordinance‑making jurisdiction upon a finding that such regulation, restraint or prohibition is necessary and desirable to promote or enhance community, neighborhood or area appearance, and may enforce any such ordinance by removing or disposing of junked motor vehicles subject to the ordinance according to the procedures prescribed in this section. The authority granted by this section shall be supplemental to any other authority conferred upon municipalities. Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize a municipality to require the removal or disposal of a motor vehicle kept or stored at a bona fide "automobile graveyard" or "junkyard" as defined in G.S. 136‑143.
For purposes of this section, the term "junked motor vehicle" means a vehicle that does not display a current license plate and that:
(1)	Is partially dismantled or wrecked; or
(2)	Cannot be self‑propelled or moved in the manner in which it originally was intended to move; or
(3)	Is more than five years old and appears to be worth less than five hundred dollars ($500.00)."
SECTION 2. This act applies to the Cities of Greenville and Henderson and the Town of Waynesville only.
SECTION 3.  This act is effective when it becomes law.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 28th day of June, 2004.

	s/	 Beverly E. Perdue
	 President of the Senate

	s/	 Richard T. Morgan
	 Speaker of the House of Representatives