Currituck commission candidate Keith Hill says the county needs to completely overhaul the ordinance that guides development in the county. Several other candidates, however, say the move would be too extreme.

Hill, a Republican from Corolla who is seeking the newly created District 1 seat on the Board of Commissioners, said at a candidates' forum on April 18 that Currituck needs a new land-use plan to guide development.

"It's old and antiquated and hasn't been updated in years," he told the crowd of about 100 at Currituck County Middle School.

Other candidates snapped back that the county, after numerous public hearings and shelling out thousands of tax dollars, recently revised its land-use plan.

In an interview last week, Hill, a radio advertising consultant, said he misspoke at the forum.

"That was my Gerald Ford moment," Hill said, referring to a famous gaffe by the former president during a debate with Jimmy Carter in 1976. "I had East and West Germany backwards. The land-use plan was overhauled a year and a half ago."

Hill said what he really meant to say is that the county needs to significantly modify its unified development ordinance. The UDO is the legally binding ordinance that controls all zoning decisions in the county. The document also dictates how every phase of development in Currituck proceeds.

"The UDO is the skeleton upon which the land-use plan hinges," Hill said.

The UDO needs to be overhauled, Hill says, because the county's growth has made it obsolete.

"(It) looks like it was designed in a caveman era, pre-automobile and plumbing," he said. "It is just so old. It did not foresee the northern growth. ... It didn't see folks in the southern end wanting to convert farms to residential (development). It did not foresee the kind of things that have happened in the Outer Banks with density. (The UDO is) a plan on how to crank a Model T when everyone has Auto Star T."

Michael Cherry, a Democrat who is also seeking the District 1 seat, said he finds Hill's comments "disturbing."

"Wow, I guess it doesn't surprise me," he said. "I've heard him make comments like that before."

Cherry said county planning staff put a lot of time and effort into developing the UDO; therefore, he doesn't think it should be scrapped as Hill suggests.

"The UDO is just like the land-use plan," Cherry said. "It is a living document that, sure, needs to have minor adjustments as we move forward, but absolutely not thrown out the window."

Jerry Wright, a Democrat who is seeking the newly created District 2 seat in lower Currituck, has been a vocal critic of the commission board's recent land-use decisions. He said Hill needs to become more informed about the county's land-use laws.

"He doesn't understand the relationship between the UDO and land-use plan, and how it all fits together," he said.

Wright said Hill also seems to have a double-standard about the pace of growth he would like to see in the Outer Banks, where he lives, and in southern Currituck, where Wright lives.

Roy Lee Etheridge, a Democrat who is Wright's opponent for the District 2 seat in the upcoming May 6 primary, said he would need to study the UDO before making a more informed judgment on Hill's sentiments.

"I haven't looked into it that much," he said. "Times change. Everything has to be redone and updated, and probably (the UDO) needs to be updated some for what the county needs. ... I'd be open minded about it."

The four other Currituck candidates in contested primary races couldn't be reached for this story.