CARY - A plan that will guide the future of the rural land west of Cary is entering its final stages, and a Tuesday meeting will offer Chatham County and Cary residents one of their final chances to sound off on the two governments' joint effort.

For more than seven years, elected officials have discussed the area between Cary's border and the mile-wide Jordan Lake. Their final plan protects some rural areas but establishes others as appropriate for subdivisions, apartment complexes and shopping centers.

The nearly final, 28-page document is divisive in Chatham County, where more than 30 people spoke at a Jan. 17 public meeting. Some residents backed the long-term plan, saying it will bring utility service and a land boom to a slow-growing swath of land. Others, fearing for their rural lifestyle, spoke about increased traffic and water pollution.

Cary Councilwoman Jennifer Robinson said the plan is a compromise.

"This has been a real collaborative effort," said the west Cary representative. "We think that the proposal that we're bringing forward to our respective boards is the best we're going to do as far as meeting the desires of the people who live there and own the property."

Robert Sears, a vocal critic, said the plan intrudes on his historic family land. He and family members, he said, own about 100 acres near the plan's single "mixed-use node," near N.C. 751 and Lewter Shop Road. The "node" is designated for higher-intensity development, comparable to Chapel Hill's 1200-home Fearrington Village.

The creep of development, Sears said, would raise property taxes and drive him from his land.

"It ain't written in the Constitution that you can have water and sewer on your land to maximize your profits," he said. He also wishes the Chatham County Board of Commissioners had bargained for more control of annexation, the process by which county landowners join the town of Cary, often to facilitate development.

Robinson tried to allay these concerns.

"What we need to be careful about as we go forward is that there are extremely generous buffers and that we are really careful about putting different uses next to each other," she said, stressing that the plan is a flexible guide rather than a rigid set of rules. "It's going to be on the shoulders of ... the elected officials to ensure that what gets built is harmonious."

In the coming weeks, planning boards for the county and town will consider the plan and make recommendations. Then the joint town-county committee will meet and potentially give its approval of the plan, after which both governments' elected officials will be asked to sign off on the plan.