On the heels of a Tuesday stakeholders' meeting and a Wednesday open house, the City Council and Planning Commission discussed the best way to revitalize Draper's town center into a transit-oriented main street.

City officials and staff said much of the public has been excited about the potential mixed-use development that could swarm around a proposed TRAX platform.

But there are still lingering concerns over the higher density a downtown-like atmosphere would bring.

"I could see this area accepting [density] levels we don't have anywhere else in the city," Councilman Jeff Stenquist said. "I don't have a high expectation that transit is going to support retail. Residential is going to support that. So we need to have adequate residential in this area to support all the other uses we want to see."

And while this week's meetings have been marketed as a separate issue from the TRAX extension, Summer Pugh, who heads Citizens for Responsible Transportation in opposing the planned TRAX extension through Draper, said the size of the project concerns her.

"They would like to have a reason for having TRAX in there, and it needs the high density and commercial development in order to get ridership," Pugh said. "We live on an acre and moved out with our nine kids because we wanted to get away from high density and go somewhere quiet with trees and a more relaxed, rural place."

UTA's plan to extend light rail eastward through Draper along former railroad tracks has picked up steam. It was envisioned to be built by 2030, but the project was moved up to 2015 as part of a package that includes three other extensions and commuter rail going south into Utah County. Now, said UTA Spokesman Chad Saley, construction could begin in early 2009 and be finished within two years of that.

Pugh wonders what the rush is, saying ridership isn't there. And, while Saley said Draper's transit-oriented development is a separate issue, he acknowledged it "works a lot better when there's transit."

"But they're talking about a main street and creating a central gathering place for Draper," he added. "It doesn't need a TRAX stop to move forward with that planning."

Jerry Goldberg of San Francisco-based PB Placemaking, which specializes in transit-oriented development, said Draper is simply on its way to becoming "even more of a city than it has been, and for some, even more of a city than they want it to be."

Within a couple days, PB Placemaking representatives will produce a report for the city. Draper Planning Director Grant Crowell said the city would continue educating people on housing density and streetscaping improvement costs and conduct market studies to see what similar cities in Oregon and Washington had done.

The timeframe on any action, Crowell said, could vary, with some parts being ready along the same timeline as TRAX and others taking 10 to 20 years.

sgehrke@sltrib.com