NORTH CAROLINA - A long-awaited plan for the Ninth Street area has reached the City Council and could come up for a vote as early as the middle of this month.

Drafted by the City/County Planning Department, the document would spell out policies that officials say would help ensure the area has enough population and business activity to support a future mass-transit station.

The plan's basic idea is to encourage high-density development along West Main Street around the Erwin Square complex, while also protecting surrounding residential areas by tapering off allowable density the further north and west one goes from Erwin Square.

But the biggest point of contention concerns the Ninth Street business district proper. Property owners there want the right to build buildings reaching as high as 45 feet. Neighborhood groups, by contrast, want building heights kept to 35 feet.

City/county planners suggest splitting the difference by allowing 45 feet, but with an extra layer of review for individual construction applications.

The point is to "create a policy that reduces the economic feasibility of tearing down the existing buildings on the east side of Ninth Street while keeping the financial incentives for property owners to maintain them," officials said in a draft of the plan.