Chamber Leader: Solar Can Preserve Currituck's Rural Character
By Josh Bass, President at Currituck (N.C.) Chamber of Commerce
Every year, another farm field I have known since childhood is plowed over. Land where corn or soybeans once sprouted now yield a different crop: boxy houses found in many fast-growing corners of America. To drivers passing through on their way to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Currituck County might still look like an ordinary rural community. But for those of us who have lived here decades, we see and feel how quickly our home is changing.
From 2011 through 2025, I served as President of the Currituck Chamber of Commerce. In that role, I came to understand the delicate balance between fostering economic growth and protecting the rural character that lies at the heart of our community.
Our community, like much of the country, needs more housing, but growth here has come faster than our ability to manage it. In 2000, the county's population stood around 18,000. Today it’s more than 32,000, making us the second fastest-growing county in North Carolina. For longtime residents, that growth means going to the local grocery store and recognizing fewer and fewer familiar faces. It means more and more housing developments, and ultimately, once a farm is covered in rooftops, it can never be a farm again. As the saying goes, “A farm's last crop is a crop of houses.”
Housing is permanent. A solar facility is not.
That distinction is one reason I’ve come to see solar farms as unlikely heroes in Currituck’s story. They offer a form of land banking, preserving large tracts of our land for future generations while putting them to productive use today. They’re a pause button on unchecked development, a way for a rural community experiencing rapid growth to catch its breath while still generating economic opportunity.
A few years ago, an 1,800-acre solar farm was built here. It will operate for at least two decades, quietly turning rays of sunlight into electricity. Over that time, houses will continue to spring up nearby, but those 1,800 acres will remain in reserve. When the project is eventually decommissioned, the next generation will have the opportunity to come up with their vision for the land. In that way, solar projects allow us as a community to hold space for our future.
Currituck has a long history of conserving resources for future generations. Our waterways are famed for migratory waterfowl and the conservation group Ducks Unlimited began here. Protecting our natural resources is part of who we are. Solar farms, to me, are a continuation of this tradition. They are not about politics or ideology, but rather about stewardship. They protect rural character, and the open spaces that define us, for generations to come. In a county where open space is disappearing, that’s an opportunity we cannot afford to dismiss.
The fields and woods of my childhood are gone, replaced by housing. While I mourn this loss, I also look to the future. How can my county be better for my children and grandchildren? Solar farms offer a practical way to ensure future generations inherit the space and flexibility to shape their own future.
Our relationship with the land shapes our rural identity. Solar farms do not erase that, but help to preserve it. In the end, they give our community more than just energy.
They give us possibilities.
