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Board of Adjustment Regular Meeting

Town of Fuquay-Varina · Board of Adjustment
Monday, June 8, 2026

Regular meeting Environment and sustainabilityPublic facilitiesFaith and cultural communitiesHealth and human services

Agenda document Minutes Watch Meeting recap

What's on this agenda

The board granted Duke Energy the setback and buffer variances it needs to rebuild and expand the electrical substation on Holland Road, then granted the special use permit for the work itself. The existing substation dates to 1952, was last rebuilt in 1972, and already misses current setbacks on three of its four property lines with no buffers at all.

It also gave Vertical Life Church another year on a permit to build a place of worship on Spence Farm Road, and let an in-home daycare on Balfour Downs Circle grow from six children to twelve. Every vote was unanimous and the meeting ran until 9:39 pm.

Summarized from the published agenda. Read the agenda itself before acting on it.

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting. Minutes

The chair opened by explaining what a quasi-judicial hearing is: testimony has to come from a witness with relevant expertise or a party with standing, not from general public comment. The clerk swore in ten expected speakers.

Vertical Life Church asked for a one-year extension, sought retroactively from July 2025 to July 2026, on a permit approved in 2024 for a 7.08-acre site in the town's extraterritorial jurisdiction. Its pastor told the board the church has been portable for more than ten years, has put over $1,000,000 into land, engineering and architecture, and faces materials and labour costs up more than 40 percent in five years plus required improvements to Spence Farm Road. Average Sunday attendance runs about 320 adults and 130 children against 766 approved seats. The building layout has gone from one structure to three to meet fire code and add outdoor space. One member said she did not like that an extension was needed at all and questioned the project's feasibility; staff explained the twelve-month clock is tied to completing the next step, that the church had submitted its site plan on June 5, and that staff cannot approve it until the extension is granted. A member who lives next door recused himself. The extension passed 6-0.

The daycare case turned on a neighbour who came without signing up. She told the board she was neither for nor against, that she has lived up the street for more than 25 years, and that her concern was traffic and whether twelve children could be supervised adequately near the road. Members weighed it and concluded the testimony did not establish that the children she had seen were in this operator's care, and that the point did not bear on harmony with the neighbourhood, which is what non-expert testimony may address. The operator had held a neighbourhood meeting nobody attended and produced a homeowners association approval letter. She offered five voluntary conditions, including a twelve-child cap, no commercial signage, and all drop-off within the existing driveway. All four findings of fact and the permit passed 7-0.

On the substation, Duke Energy's counsel walked the board through each setback line by line. The front along Holland Road sits at 29.9 feet today against a 100-foot requirement and would move back to 40. The northwest corner would go from 157.7 feet to 50, the rear from 145 to 95. Counsel's argument was that the site cannot meet current standards in any configuration, and that the rebuild brings it closer to compliance than it is now while adding landscaping where there is currently none. The design pushes west because Duke must keep the existing single bank running while building a second one beside it. Buffers along the rear are constrained by 62.5-foot danger tree zones either side of the transmission lines, where Duke will plant shrubs rather than trees.

One member asked how the area had grown this much without the expansion already in place. A Duke district planner answered that a regulated utility has to weigh customer cost against building capacity too early, and that this project is the response to observed growth in housing, commercial development and new schools. Construction is slated to run from January 2027 to June 2028 with site restoration that autumn. Nobody spoke against it; the one person called for the hearing declined to speak. All four findings and the permit passed 7-0.

Staff also gave notice that a by-law amendment moving the board's meeting time from 7 pm to 6 pm will be proposed next month. The July meeting stays at 7 pm.

How the votes went

Every vote was unanimous. The April minutes, the daycare findings and permit, the substation findings and permit, and adjournment each passed 7-0. The recusal and the church extension passed 6-0 with one member recused as an adjoining neighbour.

From the published minutes.

Who spoke

1 member of the public spoke.

  1. A neighbour of the Balfour Downs Circle daycare said she was neither for nor against, but raised traffic on the street and whether supervision would stretch with twelve children rather than six.

One neighbour spoke, on the daycare petition. A second person was called at the substation hearing and declined to speak.

Read from the records the government published after the meeting. Members of the public are private residents and are not named or indexed.

Speaking at this meeting

Town of Fuquay-Varina's own rules for public comment — check them before you rely on anything here.

Agenda items (11)

Procedural · 4Public hearing · 4Minutes approval · 1Other · 1Staff or committee report · 1
  1. 1 Call to Order
    Procedural
    Called to order at 7:00 pm with all seven members present.
  2. 2.A Approval of the Minutes from the April 13, 2026, Board of Adjustment Meeting
    Minutes approval
    Approval of the April 13, 2026 minutes, with no corrections requested.
  3. 3 Items Tabled from Previous Meeting
    Procedural
    No items were carried over.
  4. 4.A Special Use Permit Extension Petition - 5417 Spence Farm Road - Vertical Life Church - PIN 0657152630 - BOA-SUP-2024-02
    Public hearing Faith and cultural communities
    Vertical Life Church asked the board to extend a special use permit at 5417 Spence Farm Road that was originally granted in 2024.
  5. 4.B Special Use Permit Petition - 1724 Balfour Downs Circle - Ashley & Joshua Gage - PIN 0657652784 - BOA-SUP-2026-03
    Public hearing Health and human services
    Ashley and Joshua Gage petitioned for a new special use permit at their property on Balfour Downs Circle. The agenda does not describe what use is proposed.
  6. 4.C Variance Petition - BOA-VAR-2026-01 - 1212 Holland Road - PIN 0666725652 - Duke Energy Progress, LLC
    Public hearing Environment and sustainabilityPublic facilities
    Duke Energy Progress requested a zoning variance for its parcel at 1212 Holland Road. The agenda does not describe the specific relief sought.
    • 1212 Holland Rd · Duke Energy Progress INC · 4.3 acres · assessed $456,000
    • 1212 Holland Rd · Duke Energy Progress INC · 4.3 acres · assessed $456,000
  7. 4.D Special Use Permit Petition - 1212 Holland Road - Duke Energy Progress, LLC - PIN 0666725652 - BOA-SUP-2026-02
    Public hearing Environment and sustainabilityPublic facilities
    Duke Energy Progress also petitioned for a special use permit at the same 1212 Holland Road parcel, alongside its variance request for the site.
    • 1212 Holland Rd · Duke Energy Progress INC · 4.3 acres · assessed $456,000
    • 1212 Holland Rd · Duke Energy Progress INC · 4.3 acres · assessed $456,000
  8. 5.A Notification of Proposed Board of Adjustment By-Law Amendment
    Other
    The board was notified of a proposed amendment to its own by-laws.
  9. 6 Old Business
    Procedural
  10. 7 Administrative Reports
    Staff or committee report
  11. 8 Adjourn
    Procedural
    Adjourned at 9:39 pm.

Agenda changes

What moved between published versions of this agenda. Item numbers shift constantly as things are inserted, so only genuine additions and removals are listed.

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