The legislature is working on tougher controls on coastal development aimed at reducing stormwater runoff, which is a major cause of contaminated shellfish beds. A primary feature is requiring ponds that retain runoff.

Environmental groups back the more restrictive rules. They also hope to take advantage of lower or flat land prices, which in some areas may offer one last chance for conservancies to pounce on environmentally sensitive property.

"Prices have been going up for so long, so fast we've been able to protect less and less," said Reid Wilson, head of the Conservation Trust for North Carolina, an umbrella group for local land trusts. "This is kind of a special moment when you really can buy more for less than you could a year ago."

Tougher stormwater runoff rules were approved by the state Environmental Management Commission and were to take effect in August, but legislators filed bills this spring to block them. A bill easing some of the new regulations was approved last week after legislators made revisions that prompted many local governments in the affected counties to drop their opposition.

Many projects started during the boom will be developed under the old regulations. Tracts that haven't been developed yet, though, would fall under the new rules, including several large parcels bought for projects that didn't start before the market fell.

Environmental groups, regulators and developers agree the current regulations aren't working. Carteret County developer Gary Mercer said the new rules, though, are little more than tougher versions of the old methods, and state officials can't prove they will work any better.

A slow market, he said, is hardly the time to add costs to housing.

Tom Reeder, assistant director of the state Division of Water Resources and the author of the initial version of the new rules, said it was crucial to get them in place. He said the state remains open to better approaches as technology improves.