Pender County Board of Adjustments orders notice of violation for Vineyard Trace fence blocking recorded road

PENDER COUNTY, N.C. — The Pender County Board of Adjustments on July 15 granted an appeal from property owner Jennifer Hornacek and directed county planning staff to issue a notice of violation over a fence installed by the Vineyard Trace homeowners association that blocks a roadway shown on the subdivision plat.

The board voted 4–1 to accept Appeal 2026‑18, instructing the planning director to treat the fence as an obstruction of a recorded access corridor and to pursue removal as a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) violation. The chair cast the lone dissenting vote.

Planning staff presented the board with the administrative determination issued April 14, 2026 that the fence dispute was a civil matter because the roadway has not been accepted by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT). Justin Brantley, the planning staff member who presented the case, said staff found record evidence showing the Vineyard Trace right of way was recorded as a proposed public right of way but had not been adopted into the state system, and staff treated the access dispute as civil in nature.

"This determination was issued on April 14 and we received an appeal on May 5," Brantley said during the presentation, summarizing the administrative record and attached plats and surveys.

The applicant, Jennifer Hornacek, told the board the recorded plat and the county's subdivision standards create vested access and emergency‑vehicle requirements that the fence frustrates. "The county cannot avoid its ordinance by calling the dispute civil when the obstruction affects the access shown on a recorded plat," Hornacek said, asking the board to require the county to enforce its own development standards.

Hornacek submitted a packet including the recorded final plat, excerpts of the subdivision ordinance and UDO language on access and emergency vehicle access, and a survey showing the fence’s location. She also cited N.C. statute language in the appeal record addressing neighborhood public roads and argued the county's transition provisions preserve the standards that applied when Vineyard Trace was approved.

Representing the Vineyard Trace HOA, Rick Little, the HOA president, said the HOA placed the fence after consulting counsel and out of concern for liability and property protection. "We have an insurance requirement and maintain this road privately," Little said. He told the board the HOA had previously given limited, revocable permission to a prior resident to use the road and that the HOA believes no recorded easement exists for Hornacek’s parcel.

Neighbors who testified offered contrasting views: some HOA members said the roadway functions as a privately maintained neighborhood road whose use the HOA may control, while others and several board members questioned whether the plat approval and later county activity treated the corridor as an access route that must remain unobstructed for emergency vehicles.

Board discussion focused on whether the planning director's decision was advisory or a final administrative determination and on which UDO sections, if any, were implicated. One board member argued a notice of violation was appropriate because the recorded subdivision layout and UDO provisions require reasonable means of ingress and egress and immediate access for Pender County emergency services when private streets are established.

A motion to accept the appeal and direct staff to issue a notice of violation ordering removal of the fence carried 4–1. The board instructed staff to enter exhibits into the record — applicant materials, the applicant presentation, an attorney letter provided by the HOA, the board packet, the survey, and staff materials — and to prepare a written decision for signature in the coming weeks.

The board’s action does not itself settle property‑title or prescriptive‑easement claims; those matters, several board members and the board attorney said, would be for a court to determine if litigated. The written decision will state the board’s findings and the basis for the instruction to staff.

The planning department will prepare the notice of violation and the board said the written decision would be available to parties within a couple of weeks.