NEW BERN - The state could reduce the loss of traditional waterfront businesses and public shoreline access by giving property tax relief to seafood wholesalers, allowing new land-use regulations for coastal governments and increasing state funding to buy development rights.

Those solutions are among several under consideration by the Waterfront Access Study Committee, which met Tuesday. Committee members said they are "leaning toward" several proposals, but don't have specific recommendations yet for the state legislature. They are on a tight timeline, however, with a final report due to the General Assembly in April.

The legislature created the committee last summer in response to a development boom along the state's coastline, sounds and lower rivers. New construction has crowded out traditional uses such as private fishing piers and commercial docks. Because development was moving so quickly, the legislature wanted recommendations in time to act this year.

A News & Observer study in early summer found that more than 34,000 new homes in more than 100 subdivisions and condominium projects were planned along the mainland coast, where most of the state's fish houses and its crab processors are.

They're among the most vulnerable waterfront businesses, because they are suffering from an array of problems, including competition from imports, high fuel costs for fishing boats and tight regulation on catches. Increasingly, the owners have decided the solution is to sell out for development. Five years ago, coastal counties had 136 fish houses, but by last year, 30 percent had closed or were about to close, according to a study presented to the state committee.

The committee -- composed of 21 members from a broad swath of coastal interests, including a real estate broker, environmental regulators, commercial fishermen and local government officials -- has looked at a wide range of options.

Having the state mandate land use regulations would be a bad idea, said several committee members. At the same time, they agreed, it would be good to provide local governments the regulatory tools and let them decide how to use them.

The committee chairman, Michael Voiland, director of the university-based research group N.C. Sea Grant said a smart recommendation to the legislature might be to fund workshops so local governments could learn about how other towns and counties have preserved access and traditional waterfront businesses.

All seemed to back the idea of using a type of tax break now available for agricultural property for waterfront businesses.

If property owners signed up for the voluntary program, their waterfront businesses would be taxed based on the value of the current uses, rather than the higher value for development. Depending on how the law would be worded, owners could be held liable for the difference and interest if they sold their property or used it for some purpose that did not qualify as working waterfront.

"In my discussions with fish house owners across the state, I've discovered that it's perhaps the most important thing to them to [help them] stay in business," said Hardy Plyler, a commercial fisherman from Ocracoke.

A bill that would have allowed the tax break stalled in the legislature last year, but it may be rewritten and introduced again this year.

The committee's meeting Tuesday was the last before a series of three public hearings to gather additional proposals. The public hearings will be held Jan. 30 in Manteo, Jan. 31 in Morehead City and Feb. 1 in Wilmington.

Times and locations and other information about the committee are on its Web site at www .ncseagrant.org/waterfronts. The committee also plans to set up the Web site to accept public comments via e-mail.