The Jackson City Council took up the lingering question of its March 10 approval of certification of the environmental impact report for the city's land use element, circulation element and zoning project Monday night.

Many years in the making, the land use element of the general plan update has been the subject of lengthy, contentious battles.

At the center of the conflict is the development project called Jackson Hills Golf Course and Residential Community. Situated at the south end of Jackson, with most of the project outside of the city limits but in Jackson's sphere of influence, Jackson Hills has stirred opposition on many fronts. The scope of the project is such that it would add 540 houses and their attendant traffic, wastewater and other impacts.

At the moment, the Jackson Hills project is dormant, the applicant having requested and received rescission of city council resolutions that had signaled the likelihood of approval. Efforts by the opposition group, Concerned Citizens of Jackson, had taken those resolution approvals to the brink of placement on the June ballot.

The issue that is still very much alive, however, is the zoning of the property now owned by Jackson Hills LLC, applicant for the Jackson Hills project. In the midst of all the change that is occurring in the general plan update, names of designations tend to get shifted around. There are 516 acres involved, all of which are shown on the walls in city hall in green, which is residential agriculture. Density in this zoning is one dwelling on one acre.

Concerned Citizens of Jackson has been insisting that zoning of this density will encourage Jackson Hills to bring the project back for approval at some point in the future, when the market has rebounded from the present mortgage-inflicted stagnation. If this zoning is cemented in place by city council approval of the EIR, opponents aver, so will the density. So opposed are they to this possibility that they have submitted petitions to have a referendum placed on the November ballot to prevent the approval.

With the petitions at the elections department and the process underway toward placement of a referendum on the ballot, an effective stay has been placed upon the entire process of updating the general plan.

After many repetitions of the same statements in different words by both sides, City Manager Mike Daly suggested that the council take no action. As it was 12:30 a.m., council members readily agreed.