Did Brevard North Carolina’s removal of farmers markets from it’s UDO amount to illegal down-zoning?

I’ve been building a much larger timeline documenting the history of hardship between The Yard and the City of Brevard. It includes communications with Planning, every permit and fee change I can document, conflicting staff guidance, UDO language and amendments over time, Planning Board and City Council meetings and votes, meeting audio, public-records requests and responses, parking and tree concerns raised by staff, and the current SUP/neighborhood-compatibility process.

What follows is only a small piece of that record, but I think it raises an important question about North Carolina’s down-zoning law.

2021
Brevard had a specific section in its UDO for farmers markets.

The ordinance said:
“Farmers markets may be permitted for a period of one year.” and allowed: “the renewal of the temporary use permit on an annual basis.”

The Use Matrix separately listed Farmers Markets under Temporary Uses and permitted them in NMX districts.

December 11, 2024
North Carolina Session Law 2024-57 became effective, amending G.S. 160D-601 to prohibit local-government-initiated down-zoning without the written consent of affected property owners.

The statute’s definition of down-zoning specifically includes a zoning change that:
“reduces the permitted uses of land that are specified in a zoning ordinance or land development regulation to fewer uses than were allowed under its previous usage.”
The statute also says an ordinance adopted in violation of this provision is “void and unenforceable.”

May 2025
This is where the timeline gets interesting.
After the new state down-zoning law was already in effect, Brevard created a new Flea Market use requiring a Special Use Permit in mixed-use districts.
But the City did not replace Farmers Market with Flea Market at that time.

Farmers Market remained its own separately defined use and remained permitted in NMX.
So for a period of months, Brevard’s UDO contained both uses at the same time, with different regulatory requirements:
Farmers Market → permitted temporary use
Flea Market → Special Use Permit

That seems important because it shows the City itself continued to treat the two as distinct land uses after the new down-zoning statute took effect.

December 2025
Planning then removed every reference to “Farmers Market” from the UDO:
the definition was deleted
the farmers-market-specific standards were deleted
Farmers Market was removed from the Use Matrix

Property owners wanting to operate what had previously been classified as a Farmers Market were then directed toward the substantially more restrictive Flea Market/SUP process or Conditional Zoning.

That isn’t just a change in terminology.
A use that had been specifically defined and permitted in NMX disappeared from the ordinance, and the pathway offered in its place requires discretionary land-use approval.

And that’s the question I’m trying to understand:

If North Carolina law prohibits a city-initiated zoning amendment that reduces the permitted uses of property, how is deleting an existing permitted use from the Use Matrix and requiring property owners to pursue a SUP for another use not down-zoning?

There may be a legitimate legal explanation. If there is, I’d genuinely like to hear it.

But looking strictly at the timeline, I think the City should at least explain how this change complies with G.S. 160D-601.