What Does it Mean to Implement a CAMA Land Use Plan Anyway?

County and municipal governments in coastal North Carolina have been preparing local land use plans under the state's Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) program for almost 25 years. Local planning has always been viewed as an important part of that larger coastal management program. Both the larger program in general and local planning in particular, however, have recently become mired in controversy as the state and coastal localities attempt to address "explosive population growth and unexpected environmental dangers [that] continue to threaten the coast" (NC CFC 1994: ES-1 ). Much of that controversy revolves around differing interpretations of what, exactly, the state can require of the localities through its planning mandates, whether the plans being produced under those mandates are good plans, and whether the localities themselves are actually implementing their plans