Currituck residents will get a chance next month to express their views about a proposed change to the county's land-use plan that could drastically alter the landscape of southern Currituck.

A town hall meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, June 5, on the Board of Commissioners' proposal to create a "full-service" district from Grandy southward. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Kilmarlic Golf Club at 127 Carolina Club Drive in Grandy.

Currently, the land-use plan designates a 6,500-acre area south of Grandy as "limited service." As such, commercial development in the area is limited to neighborhood stores.

If the area is changed to a full-service district, commercial development could be intensified to also include shopping centers and malls. In addition, the change could potentially triple the land-use plan's recommended home densities in the area.

The change would not, however, affect the limited-service designation for the Harbinger and Point Harbor areas at the very southern end of mainland Currituck.

A majority of county commissioners agreed at a Jan. 28 retreat to proceed with changing the land-use plan.

But Commissioner Owen Etheridge, who opposed the change, said the current plan, adopted in 2006, resulted from much public input and should not change.

"I think the land-use plan as it stands today reflects what the vast majority of people of lower Currituck wanted," he said.

The land-use plan's limited-service classification recommends residential development be limited to one unit per acre. However, it does allow an increase to 1.5 units depending on whether service facilities are in place or planned. The plan also allows low-impact commercial development.

The full-service designation encourages multi-family residential developments and large-scale commercial development, including so-called "box stores" typically found at shopping centers and malls.

Two residential units per acre is the contemplated density in a full-service district, but that can be increased to three or four units per acre depending upon available services and the potential impact on the surrounding area.

Commissioners use the land-use plan to guide future zoning decisions, and the land-use designation is a major factor in staff recommendations on rezonings.

The current Currituck commission board has been lobbied by landowners to allow full-service development in the southern end of the county.

Roy E. Sawyer Jr., chairman of the Democratic Party and the largest contributor to Board of Commissioners Chairman Barry Nelms' 2006 election campaign, was among the landowners who signed a letter to Nelms dated Nov. 23, 2007, recommending the change to full-service. In the letter, Sawyer notes that Nelms had asked the group for some ideas on amending the land-use plan.

"Certainly, the corridor along 158/168 from Point Harbor through Jarvisburg and Grandy on to Barco and Moyock should be a full-service district," Sawyer's letter states. It adds that this would "allow for the residential and commercial development that will produce the diversified economic base that will make the local economy more stable."

"All this should be consistent with the rural character of the county," the letter states. "No farmland owners should be penalized for continuing to farm, nor should they be penalized for choosing to sell for development."

Sawyer said later that there was no reason why all of southern Currituck should not be a full-service district.

"In a limited-service district there are less services, yet you have one tax rate (for county residents). Is that fair?" he asked.

Sawyer also noted that in the summer of 2005, when the public hearings on the new land-use plan were held, most residents supported more development.

"And from what I read, the consensus of the people is they wanted a full-service district in their area," he said.

Not everyone agrees.

Jerry Wright, whose family owns the Cotton Gin in Jarvisburg and who is a Democratic candidate for a county commission seat in the fall, is strongly opposed to changing the land-use plan.

"It is a political payoff to what I call, 'the land baron society,'" he said. "People do not understand the magnitude of the growth that is allowed underneath this change."

Wright said the current land-use plan, which was adopted after numerous public hearings only a few years ago, significantly increased the allowable home densities in southern Currituck.

"It is currently a 300-percent increase. The new-land use plan is very pro-growth," Wright said. "Now they want to change that and add another 400- to 500-percent growth increase on top of that. It's in an area as rural as it is in lower Currituck. It just doesn't make sense."

For his part, Nelms said in a previous interview that there was nothing nefarious about the proposal. All it would do, he said, is merge three existing full-service districts "into one continuous one." He emphasized that there would be no change "that affected the residential area in Point Harbor."

County Planning Director Ben Woody said after the town hall meeting, the Planning Board would mull over the land-use plan change on June 10. He said commissioners would take up the proposal on July 21.

He said the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission would have to approve of the change after evaluating issues such as whether the county has services to handle the added home density. The CRC meets Sept. 24-26. If that agency ratifies the change, the modified land-use plan could go into effect in October.