Worries about rampant growth, choking traffic and the survival of local businesses are clashing with desires for local shopping convenience, more jobs and tax revenue for the county as the Higgins Marketplace project moves forward.

Next Tuesday, if Nevada County supervisors give the nod to developers, residents in southern Nevada County could be shopping at a nearby Bel Air Market by 2011.

Starting at 1:30 p.m. in what is expected to be a long afternoon, supervisors will consider three actions: Certifying the final environmental impact report for the project, amending the general plan from light industrial to commercial; and rezoning the project from business park to commercial.

Earlier this week, opponents and supporters of the project packed the Higgins Lions Community Center during a town hall meeting with District 2 Supervisor Ed Scofield, county planners and developer Fred Katz of Katz Kirkpatrick Properties from Roseville.

Patricia Tintle, mother of local contractor and prominent Nevada City property owner Gary Tintle, owns the Higgins Marketplace property behind the Longs Drugs Store on Combie Road.

Located on 20 acres, the proposed project would include a 75,710-square-foot shopping center with a 50,000-square-foot Bel Air Market and 10 acres of open space.

Developers have scaled back their project already. They originally proposed an 86,000-square-foot shopping center, a 59,000-square-foot market and two fast-food restaurants with drive-throughs. Since then, fast-food restaurants have been prohibited for the area.

The shopping center would bring 140 local jobs, generate needed sales tax income for Nevada County and make life more convenient for residents in the area, Katz said.

“It's not as though the grassy fields out there were planned to be grassy fields forever. It was planned to be a business park,” Katz said.

Those critical of the project worry it would lead to traffic congestion on Combie Road and Highway 49, take business away from mom-and-pop stores already at the crossroads and spoil the rural charm for which many moved to the area.

“We would be forced to close our doors and move out of the area,” said Ceylon Smith, co-owner of the Gristmill Bakery and Deli in the Lake Center Shopping Center. Smith has owned the bakery next to Holiday Market with her sister and mother for 18 years.

“When Starbucks came in, we lost 80 percent of our coffee business,” Smith said. She survived the hit by offering things the coffee chain doesn't, such as a full line of baked goods made from scratch, a delicatessen and made-to-order wedding cakes.

At the town hall meeting, Smith submitted a petition with 500 signatures from people who say they don't want to see a corporate supermarket built in their neighborhood.

“They don't want us to disappear,” Smith said.

Studies conducted for the project show Holiday Market would lose 50 percent of its business if a Bel Air Market moved in.

“They'll lose some business, but competition is the American way and creates better pricing for the consumer,” Katz said.

The studies show Holiday Market captures 20 percent of area grocery shoppers.

“With a virtual monopoly, that's the best they can apparently do,” Katz said.

Each week, people living in the area spend $1.2 million on food, Katz said. Of those people, 80 percent already spend their money outside the area, shopping at Trader Joe's, Winco and Costco, all in Roseville, Katz said.

If a Bel Air Market were built, 19 percent would continue to shop down the hill, but about 60 percent would shop at the new Bel Air, Katz estimated.

Millions of dollars in traffic mitigations would have to be made before the shopping center can be built, including traffic signals at the intersection of Combie and Higgins Drive and at Woodridge Drive and Highway 49.

It is estimated that 2,500 customers would visit the shopping center each day.

“We are not going to make the traffic any worse,” Katz said.

From the beginning, Scofield has supported the project. He said it would relieve traffic on Highway 49 by keeping people shopping closer to home rather than traveling to Grass Valley, Auburn or Roseville.

With fewer cars on the road, air quality would improve, Katz said.

“There are a lot of miles on Highway 49 that would be eliminated,” Scofield added.

Though approval from supervisors on Tuesday is critical to the project moving forward and on schedule for an opening in 2011, many hurdles in the process remain, said county Planning Director Jory Stewart.

Next comes a use permit and tentative map that must be approved by the county's Planning Commission. Still needed is environmental approval from the California State Water Resources Board, a building permit from the county and sewer hook-ups.

To contact Staff Writer Laura Brown, e-mail lbrown@theunion.com or call 477-4231.