News

Homeowners seek to block Ecusta Trail parking lot

Because the popularity of the Ecusta Trail has driven demand for parking, the Henderson County Board of Commissioners amended the county land-use code to allow one-acre parking lots in residential zones. Some residents of Hunter’s Glen hope to block a parking lot at their subdivision entrance. [AMY B. MCCRAW/Hendersonville Lightning]

By Bill Moss, Published: January 7, 2026

Well before the Ecusta Trail opened, it was safe to forecast that its construction and use would provoke some conflict.

Early on, homeowners protested that the trail contractor had cut trees and hedges along their property lines they had hoped would buffer their property from trail traffic and provide privacy. There’s grumbling that bicyclists roll through 4-way stops, pleas for more safety measures and warning signs and demands for amenities like restrooms, trash receptacles and dog-poop bags.

Six months after it opened, the trail has proved to be popular, even in winter, and as awareness of the attraction spreads, traffic is bound to increase. The linear park, after all, is only a third of the way done and more thrilling or pastoral sections are yet to open — the trestle crossing of the French Broad River, a long section through woods, meadows and farmland and thirst-quenching destinations like Oskar Blues Brewing Co. and downtown Brevard.

The latest Ecusta flashpoint is currently playing out near the trail’s (for now) western terminus. Some residents of Hunter’s Glen in Horse Shoe are objecting to a decision by the Board of Commissioners to drape a zoning overlay across the length of trail allowing parking lots — not just in commercial and industrial zones but in residential ones.

“There are no public rest rooms, no trash cans. It’s just going to be a parking lot right in the middle of a residential area,” said Karen Warthen, who moved to the neighborhood two years ago with her husband after both retired from jobs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Barry Warthen, a Duke University graduate who grew up in North Carolina, has accumulated a stack of background on the Hunters Glen parking lot, tracing the series of meetings during which commissioners discussed the idea.

Advisory boards weigh in

Michael Edney, vice chair of the board, first introduced the proposed zoning text amendment on Nov. 4, 2024. A week later, the Rail Trail Advisory Committee (RTAC) took up the topic and went on to deliberate on it at least three more times before recommending approval. Significant in the recommendation of both the RTAC and the county planning board, Warthen said, was that both endorsed parking in commercial and industrial zones but not residential areas.

Ken Shelton, a Friends of the Ecusta Trail founder and RTAC member, appeared at the county commission meeting last April 7 to tell commissioners that the committee “had unanimously approved the Land Development Code amendment, recommending that parking only be allowed in commercial and industrial areas,” according to minutes of the meeting.

During discussion by the county commission, Edney again emphasized the need for parking in both residential and commercial districts. When Commissioner Rebecca McCall suggested sending the proposal back to the planning board for another look, Edney objected, and the matter never was re-referred. After discussing the zoning text amendment twice more, on May 5 and May 12, commissioners adopted the change on June 2, with the residential expansion.

The Warthens argue that the county’s action was improper because a legal notice advertising the public hearing on the text amendment contained no mention of residential zones.

“Based on that notice, residents in residential zones had no reason to believe their properties would be affected and therefore had no opportunity to voice their concerns,” Warthen wrote in an update last November to Hunter’s Glen homeowners. “Under North Carolina law, this is a ‘substantial change’ that legally requires a new accurate public notice and a new public hearing.”

Board of Commissioners Chair Bill Lapsley disputes that.

“We discussed that with our county attorney and he doesn’t believe that has legal standing,” he said. “We publicly noticed that we were going to change the zoning ordinance. We don’t have to specify a particular change from one thing to the next. As long we noticed that we’re going to consider changing a zoning condition, that’s all we have an obligation to do.”

Parking lot cleared technical review

Owned by Hunters Glen homeowners Lisa and Jeff Ayers, the flat 1-acre site at the entrance of the subdivision is part of a 4-acre tract the couple bought for $48,000 in 2020. In August, the county Technical Review Committee OK’d an application for the 134-space parking lot submitted by Chris Rivera and JC Operations LLC, a commercial parking lot management company that has helped landowners monetize land for paid parking up and down the trail.

Attorneys for the Warthens received no response to a cease-and-desist letter they sent to JC Operations and the Ayerses in November.

“It’s obviously approved for parking,” Rivera, in an interview Tuesday, said of the 1-acre site. “It’s outside of that subdivision of Hunter’s Glen. People are reading the deed restriction a certain way but it’s vague and all over the place. The homeowners association decided not to do anything (to oppose the parking lot) because they felt they didn’t have any grounds.”

The homeowners fighting the parking lot “are just trying to dictate what a private property owner can do with their property,” added Rivera, whose company operates 22 parking lots in Henderson County. “We did our research, we hired an engineer.”

Parking lot restrictions

Lapsley and Commissioner Sheila Franklin both said the need for ample parking along the six-mile stretch that opened last July is plain to see and so are the consequences of doing nothing.

The Hunter’s Glen entrance near U.S. 64 and the Horse Shoe post office is an example, Franklin said, of a trail users’ parking lot “where it makes sense.”

“That area I think is open to the main road and it’s right there on the corner,” she said. “I feel like it’s quite different from just going in a residential area and putting in a parking lot. Here’s the problem: If they don’t allow that one spot for parking people are liable to be parking all through their neighborhood and they don’t want that. If you don’t provide anything anywhere, people will be parking on your street and all over.”

Both Franklin and Lapsley said a deed restrictions dispute is a matter for the courts.

“I understand their issue but their complaint is that the restrictions contained in the subdivision say that particular parcel of land will not be developed, and that’s not a county issue, that’s not our job to enforce,” Lapsley said.

The zoning text amendment, he added, contains significant protections for neighboring landowners.

“My concern was if we didn’t do something, people were gonna illegally park along the edge of the road and go on private property and that would cause more of a problem,” he said. “We put in restrictions. We restricted the size and we put in buffering — we didn’t let it get totally out of the control.”

The Hunter’s Glen parking application was the first under the amended ordinance but won’t be the last. Already, the Technical Review Committee OK’d an application for a 25-space gravel lot at the Packa’s Place farm on U.S. 64 across from Root & Bone.

Under the zoning amendment, Ecusta Trail parking lots:

• May only be located along parcels adjacent to the trail.
• Can be no larger than 1 acre.
• Must be separated from another trail parking lot by at least 1,000 feet.
• Must mitigate lighting.
• May not be enclosed garages.
• Must have a 15-feet setback from boundary line.
• Must have a 10-foot planting strip along the perimeter.
• Must be “designed and maintained in such a manner as to prevent excessive puddling of water or muddy areas.”
• May be constructed of permeable pavement, gravel or asphalt.
• Must obtain a driveway permit from NCDOT if accessed from a state-maintained road.
• May charge for parking.

The Warthens, who organized the Hunter’s Glen Action Group to raise money to hire an attorney, hope to block the parking lot in their neighborhood in court — either by challenging the text amendment adoption on procedural grounds or by enforcing the deed restrictions.

“My husband and I are bikers and hikers,” Karen Warthen said. “We truly support the trail, we volunteer, we pick up trash along it, we love it. This isn’t about NIMBY as much as it isn’t safe.”