At a special meeting of the Kincardine and Mearns area committee on the local development plan, councillors agreed that only a further 390 homes should be allocated to the town in the next 12 years.
There were worries locally that thousands of homes could be build in the town, as big developers vied for sites at places such as Toucks, Mains of Cowie and Braehead.

During a passionate discussion about the future of Stonehaven, officials' recommendation to build 230 homes at Toucks was dismissed, with Councillor Wendy Agnew branding the development a "carbuncle".
She said she would hang her head in shame if she had made the recommendations for the town, while councillor Mike Sullivan said it would be "absolutely appalling" to start building houses there.
Planning policy team leader Piers Blaxter said: "We've looked carefully at how we can develop Stonehaven in a sensitive manner."

Councillors decided to allocate 110 houses to a site at Carron Den, 50 to one at Fetteresso and 230 to the Ury Estate.

Mr Blaxter cast doubt on the future of the Ury House project, saying officials had "significant concerns" that it would not go forward.
He said: "We have significantly less confidence that development will actually take place. There are significant concerns because the developer has now gone bankrupt. There are significant issues relating to whether they can actually deliver what they said they would deliver.
"In relation to access to the site, there is a very, very expensive bridge they would have to provide. We are not convinced they have accounted for that in the calculations they have done."
Planners had therefore recommended that the 230 house allocation for the project be distributed elsewhere, but this was rejected by councillors.

Councillor Agnew said: "It is an enabling development. It is set in stone. We cannot take a 230 house enabling device and set it somewhere else."

Councillor Sullivan added his support to the project and said: "Stonehaven has had enough. We have got a predicted allocation of 430 households and 230 of those are located at Ury. I think the Ury project is excellent and we should be putting all our weight behind its future and not putting it into the sidelines.

"I have no doubt that Ury will rise from the dead and before too long we will see 230 households in that very beautiful part of the world."
As a result, councillors were left with only around 200 households to allocate elsewhere in the town. Several said they now had the opportunity to correct bad decisions that had been made in the past.
George Carr said that past planning decisions for the town warranted the description of a "dog's breakfast".

Stonehaven councillor Graeme Clark said: "Stonehaven is a special place and could easily be spoiled. We've seen elsewhere in Aberdeenshire how places can be spoiled."
Councillors also took the decision to limit the building of any supermarket to an area of 2500m squared.
Councillor Clark said he felt that introducing a large new supermarket to the town would be the "death knell" for some local shops.
Speaking at the Stonehaven and District Community Council meeting on Tuesday night he said that a metro-sized store would be more appropriate.

He said: "I feel a big supermarket will be a death knell for some of the shops. I do worry that supermarkets sell everything very cheaply."
Councillor Agnew said she believed that the opposite would happen and that it would bring business to the town. She said: "I don't believe that supermarkets take business away. All the towns that have had a supermarket built say that it brings people into the area, and in doing so makes people say 'let's visit the town'."

Community councillor Ian Hunter agreed with Councillor Agnew and said: "A decent sized supermarket will very much be a magnet for the town and it would be a failure if we do not get a site for one."
One resident used Inverurie as an example of a town that has prospered even with four supermarkets surrounding it. He said: "There isn't a trader there not doing well. It is a very buoyant town."

Allan Sutherland, of the Save Our Stoney Again group, said he was pleased with the decisions councillors had made at the area committee.
He said: "I think they have been pretty sensible. They have allocated over a number of years the opportunity to build 430 houses. I think the councillors have done a good job representing the local people, we believe this is what the people of Stonehaven want. By making Ury viable they have managed to avoid the two major developments for the town."

Mr Sutherland did say however, that the group would remain vigilant as the decisions were not yet set in stone and could still change in the future.

He said: "The further it goes with the council, the harder it will be to change, but I am sure that the developers will be trying to find ways round this."