The prospect of 240 apartments feeding traffic onto Hillandale and Guess roads just north of Interstate 85 promises to enliven the Durham Planning Commission's first meeting of 2008.

A rezoning request to allow the project, on a 17-acre wooded tract at Bertland Avenue and Omah Street, is one of nine cases on the commission's Tuesday-night agenda, and likely the most contentious.

"This traffic impact is going to be really unreal," said Ann Goodwin, who lives and owns rental homes in the adjacent neighborhood and is circulating a petition against the Fairfield at Hillandale rezoning.

"I signed it," said H.T. Garrett, who has lived on Bertland Avenue, directly across from the proposed apartments, for decades. "I don't want apartments across from me," he said. "It's been so quiet and peaceful here for 40 years."

FF Development LP, a San Diego firm with branches across the country, is requesting the rezoning on three tracts presently owned by George and Susan Beischer of Durham. The planning department staff has given its stamp of approval, based on consistency with the Durham Comprehensive Plan.

The site's present zoning is for single-family and "suburban multi-family" residences, with two acres zoned commercial. The request would leave the commercial portion as is, but change the rest to the denser "urban multi-family" zoning.

According to the comprehensive plan's land-use map, the site is an island of high-density designation with single-family homes to the north, commercial use on the east and south and offices on the west. The closest access is from Guess Road, via Fawn Avenue or Albany and Reichard streets onto Omah.

FF Development proposes to add access by extending Bertland, presently a dead-end street, to Hillandale Road opposite the Loehmann's Plaza shopping center.

Either way, said Goodwin, the apartments would add an estimated 480 automobiles going in and out of the neighborhood.

"All this traffic is going to hit Guess Road and Hillandale," she said, which already get backed up at rush hours and carry heavy loads all the time.

However, said Scott Whiteman of the Durham Planning Department, the proposed complex is not quite large enough to require a Traffic Impact Analysis. And Bryan Condie of FF Development's affiliate Fairfield Development, points out that the apartments would actually create less traffic than other uses to which the land could be put.

"Going by the [planning] staff report," he said, "we are creating less traffic than what would be allowed there by right."

The staff report predicts the 240 apartments would add 1,593 trips per day on Guess and Hillandale. Were the property built to capacity under current zoning, which could include a fast-food restaurant, the staff figures an extra 1,639 trips per day, and points out that Hillandale Road is due for a widening project in 2009.

Condie of Fairfield Development does not see traffic congestion as a problem for his project's tenants.

"The improvements we're making will take care of it," he said.

Goodwin is not convinced.

"There are so many unanswered questions," she said, and they are not all about traffic. There are noise and crime to consider, and the environment: "Where the road [Bertland] is supposed to be, is wetland," she said.

Goodwin said she has about 50 signatures on her petition, and she's urging her neighbors to make a big turnout at Tuesday's meeting. Whatever the Planning Commission thinks, though, the final rezoning decision will be up to the City Council some weeks from now.

"I'm concerned about it," Garrett said, "but I don't know how much I can do."