Johnston County never looked back when its livelihood turned from growing tobacco to growing houses in the 1990s.

While other Triangle counties have placed controls on development -- either by restricting where homes and businesses can go or forcing builders to pay for schools and roads -- Johnston has continued to welcome it.

But now even Johnston leaders are giving growth a second look.

In a surprise move last month, the county planning board voted unanimously to stop approving new homes temporarily until the county adopts new recommendations on managing growth.

Commissioners must approve the measure for it to take effect; they'll consider it today. While they don't appear likely to halt development, the vote could signal the start of a larger battle over how to manage growth.

"We've had too much of a good thing," said Tom Moore, the planning board member who proposed the moratorium. "Development is good, but we've got to do something to slow it down and control it until we can get a handle on our infrastructure."

A committee of commissioners and planning board members has mulled over growth management ideas for more than a year. The panel has looked at putting tighter controls on where high-density housing and businesses can go and requiring that schools and roads are in place before approving new homes.

The panel is expected to release its plan next month, and it's not clear yet which of these measures will be adopted. But Moore, a former commissioner, wants to stop approving new homes until restrictions are in place.

Construction won't stop, because nearly 17,000 homes have been approved but not built yet.

The moratorium on new approvals faces opposition from pro-growth commissioners. Wade Stewart, board vice chairman, said the county can handle the 1,500 to 1,800 homes a year it has been adding recently.

"It's not necessary at this time," Stewart said of the moratorium. "I don't see a crisis."

But Commissioner Allen Mims said the moratorium would stop an influx of developers who might be eager to get their plans started before the rules are in place. He said that's what happened in 1999, when the county adopted a three-year cap on the number of homes it could approve per year.

"A lot of them think control means stop," Mims said of his fellow commissioners. Mims said he welcomes growth "as long as the schools and the roads and the quality of life is not hurt, and everything comes online at the right time, and the correct people are paying the bill."

Stewart hopes to encourage developers to donate land for schools and help with infrastructure in other ways. Mims favors requiring them to pay impact fees or turning down subdivisions when roads or schools aren't in place.

These conflicts are common as counties plan for growth, said Steve Smutko, a policy specialist with the N.C. Cooperative Extension Agency and a professor at N.C. State University.

"It's often very contentious," said Smutko, who advises towns and counties as they adopt comprehensive planning. "It's very difficult for political leaders. There is a lot of pressures on all sides."

For Martha Engeman, controlling growth isn't an abstract exercise. She looks out the window of her home in a tree-lined subdivision near the Wake County line in western Johnston, and she sees wide fields and trees. She wants to see that open space preserved.

"One of my fears going forward is that I love the place that I live in, but I don't want it to turn into a strip mall," Engeman said.

Jennie Harless also fears that the lack of regulation will result in an unseemly mix of homes and businesses. Her horse-friendly neighborhood outside Clayton recently lost a fight over a mini-storage facility that is now across the street from her home. Such businesses are often allowed in rural and residential areas using special permits.

Harless has been in Johnston County since 1995, when inexpensive starter homes started popping up in the western part of the county.

"I'm concerned that the commissioners are solely there to increase their tax base," Harless said. "I think they just want development."

Eventually, residents of fast-growing counties like Johnston usually push for more managed growth, said David Godschalk, a planning professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill.

Forty-seven percent of Johnston County residents in a recent survey said growth has added to their tax burden. About the same percentage said developers should be required to give the county land or money for parks, schools and other amenities as a condition for building new subdivisions.

Controlling growth also has its problems. Stricter zoning, for example, means some landowners might have fewer options of what to do with their property. But the alternative, Godschalk said, is uncertainty about issues such as where your child will go to school and what you'll see out your window.

"The downfall is usually a kind of chaos where you never know what's going to happen next door to you," Godschalk said. "You tend to get a kind of hodgepodge pattern that in the end nobody's happy with."