Holly Springs, NC, Sep. 25, 2026 — A series of laws passed by the North Carolina General Assembly this year will change how Holly Springs, Apex and Fuquay-Varina regulate growth and development.
Beginning next year, the towns generally will no longer be able to require developers to provide a minimum number of parking spaces. Other changes limit stormwater requirements when existing properties are redeveloped, extend protections for approved development plans from two years to five and protect certain home-based businesses from local permitting requirements.
The legislature also created statewide rules for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in larger municipalities and new requirements intended to make development fees more predictable. The laws leave much of local zoning intact but set new limits on what towns can require.
Minimum parking requirements are going away
Beginning January 1st, Holly Springs, Apex and Fuquay-Varina generally will no longer be able to require a development to provide a minimum number of off-street parking spaces.
House Bill 162, enacted as Session Law 2026-39, prohibits local development regulations from requiring a minimum number of parking spaces based on a development, structure, occupancy or use. It also generally prevents local governments from requiring individual spaces larger than 9 feet by 20 feet, with exceptions for accessible, parallel and diagonal parking.
Developers can still provide as much parking as they believe a project needs. But if an apartment project that previously would have required 350 spaces proposes 275, for example, the town generally can’t require the additional 75 simply because of its previous parking formula.
The law treats communities in North Carolina’s designated coastal area differently. Wake County is not part of that area.
Redevelopment gets different stormwater treatment
House Bill 376, enacted as Session Law 2026-32, changes how existing pavement and buildings are treated when developed property is redeveloped.
Existing built-upon area receives square-foot-for-square-foot credit when calculating additional stormwater-control requirements, whether it remains in place or is demolished, relocated or replaced. Additional controls generally apply to new impervious surface above what previously existed, although federal requirements can supersede the state provision.
Consider an older shopping center with 10 acres of buildings and pavement that is replaced by a development with 11 acres of built-upon area. The town generally couldn’t treat all 11 acres as new impervious surface; the existing 10 acres would receive credit.
Local governments must bring their stormwater programs into compliance by July 2nd, 2027. Towns can still offer voluntary incentives, such as waived fees or regulatory concessions, for developers that provide stormwater controls beyond the minimum requirements.
Development approvals can remain protected for five years
The 2026 Regulatory Reform Act, Senate Bill 445, extends the statutory vesting period for a site-specific development plan from two years to five years. Local governments can approve longer periods of up to eight years when circumstances warrant it, compared with a previous maximum of five.
Vesting generally protects an approved development from subsequently adopted regulations that would impair or delay the project, subject to exceptions in state law.
For example, if Apex approves a large mixed-use development in 2027 and changes its development standards in 2029, a project with vested rights generally could continue under the rules associated with its approval. That protection isn’t absolute, but the change gives large projects substantially more time before their statutory vesting expires.
Apex must allow accessory dwelling units
The Regulatory Reform Act also creates new rules for accessory dwelling units, commonly called ADUs. They can include apartments over garages, converted portions of existing structures or smaller detached homes on the same property as a primary residence.
Beginning January 15th, covered municipalities must allow at least one ADU with each detached single-family home in residential areas where detached single-family homes are allowed.
A town can’t require additional parking for the ADU, require conditional zoning, prohibit the main house and ADU from being rented long-term to separate households or prohibit connection to existing utilities when adequate capacity is available.
Towns retain some control over placement, setbacks and size. They can require an ADU to be smaller than the primary home and can establish a maximum size, but that maximum can’t be set below 800 square feet or above 1,000 square feet. Private covenants and HOA restrictions are not overridden by the new law.
The provision applies to non-coastal municipalities with populations of at least 50,000. North Carolina’s Chapter 160D allows municipalities to use the most recent annual state-certified population estimate when determining population for purposes of the chapter.
The latest published state figures put Apex at 75,059, Holly Springs at 49,039 and Fuquay-Varina at 44,237. That puts Apex above the threshold, with Holly Springs just below it.
Holly Springs doesn’t necessarily have to wait for the 2030 Census. If a future applicable state-certified population estimate puts the town above 50,000, it could become subject to the ADU law at that point.
Covered municipalities must adopt compliant regulations by July 1st. If they don’t, state law says ADUs must be allowed without the limitations the municipality otherwise would have been permitted to impose.
Certain home businesses get new protection
House Bill 372, enacted as Session Law 2026-51, prevents towns from prohibiting what the law defines as a “no-impact home-based business” or requiring its owner to obtain a permit, license, variance or other municipal approval simply to operate.
To qualify, the business can’t generate on-street parking or a substantial increase in neighborhood traffic. Its activities must occur inside the home or yard, can’t be visible from the street and can’t involve outdoor storage of business merchandise, equipment or supplies.
A consulting business operated from a home office with little or no customer traffic is one example of the type of business that could qualify. Towns can still impose narrowly tailored health and safety regulations and ensure the business remains secondary and compatible with residential use.
The state law doesn’t override private deed restrictions, covenants or HOA rules.
Developers get more certainty about town fees
The Regulatory Reform Act also requires towns to publish their development-fee schedules online and provide applicants with an estimate of applicable fees within 10 business days after receiving a completed development application.
When approval is issued, the town must provide a final, binding statement of the fees due. That amount generally can’t exceed the most recent estimate unless the fee schedule has changed.
If a project materially changes during review, the town has 10 business days after receiving the new information to issue a revised estimate. So a developer initially quoted $600,000 generally couldn’t reach the end of an unchanged project and unexpectedly receive a $750,000 bill for fees that should have been included in the estimate.
The law doesn’t eliminate development fees. It gives applicants earlier information about what those fees are expected to be and provides a process to enforce the requirements in Superior Court.
The state is limiting some building-design requirements
Beginning October 1st, towns generally can’t require windows, storefront glass or similar glazing to cover more than 35% of the ground-floor facade of a commercial or mixed-use building.
For certain non-storefront uses, including some medical, religious, educational, nonprofit and institutional uses, the limit on what a town can require is 20%. The law includes exceptions, including provisions involving historic properties.
Developers can use more glass voluntarily. The restriction applies to how much a local government can require through its development regulations.
Apex faces another change because it owns an electric utility
Apex also is affected by a new law governing municipalities that participate in the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency.
Session Law 2026-27 restricts how covered municipalities can use electric-system revenue, and Apex is specifically included. Electric revenue can pay the direct and indirect costs of the system and other expenses allowed by the statute, while remaining revenue generally must be used to lower electric rates or make additional payments on electric-system debt.
For Apex, the change is primarily a municipal-finance issue rather than a development issue. It places tighter limits on transferring money generated by the electric utility to unrelated municipal purposes.
Another development rule could eventually reach Apex
One of the Regulatory Reform Act’s more significant land-use provisions doesn’t currently apply to Holly Springs, Apex or Fuquay-Varina.
The law requires qualifying municipalities to allow specified residential development by right when previously developed property in commercial, business or light-industrial zoning districts is redeveloped. Those municipalities also can’t impose a maximum building height below 60 feet on the residential uses covered by the law.
The provision applies only to cities with at least 80,000 residents in counties with at least 1 million residents, according to the most recent federal decennial census. Wake County clears the county threshold, but none of the three towns clears the municipal threshold under the census measurement required by the law.
Apex is the one to watch. Its corrected 2020 Census population is 63,591, although more recent annual estimates put its population considerably higher.
Those annual estimates don’t trigger this provision because the legislature specifically tied it to the federal decennial census. If the 2030 Census puts Apex above 80,000, the provision could then have significant implications for redevelopment of qualifying commercial properties.
It also creates an unusual distinction within the same law. Apex is large enough to fall under the ADU provision using current population data but remains below the threshold for the commercial-redevelopment provision because that section specifically uses the decennial census.
What changes for the towns
Holly Springs, Apex and Fuquay-Varina still control many of the decisions that shape growth, including rezonings, comprehensive planning, utility capacity, transportation, subdivision design and development approvals.
But the state has narrowed local authority in several areas. The towns generally will no longer set minimum parking requirements, have less discretion over stormwater requirements for redevelopment, must provide longer protection for some approved development plans and face new limits involving home businesses, development fees and building design. Apex also must accommodate ADUs under the state’s new rules, with Holly Springs approaching the population threshold.
For residents and developers, that adds another question to the local development process. In addition to what a town’s development ordinance says, it increasingly matters what state law allows the town to require.
Source documents: Direct links to the actual enacted laws on the North Carolina General Assembly website:
HB 162 / Session Law 2026-39 — Parking:
https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/SessionLaws/HTML/2025-2026/SL2026-39.htmlHB 376 / Session Law 2026-32 — Stormwater / Water & Wastewater:
https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/SessionLaws/HTML/2025-2026/SL2026-32.htmlSB 445 / Session Law 2026-59 — Regulatory Reform Act (vesting, ADUs, development fees, glazing, commercial redevelopment):
https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/SessionLaws/HTML/2025-2026/SL2026-59.htmlHB 372 / Session Law 2026-51 — Home-Based Businesses:
https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/SessionLaws/HTML/2025-2026/SL2026-51.htmlSB 1076 / Session Law 2026-27 — Municipal Electric Revenue / Apex:
https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/SessionLaws/HTML/2025-2026/SL2026-27.html