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Sections of Oracle Road may need widening to up to 12 lanes to handle the extra traffic that a proposed northern Pima County development could bring, says a draft report written for the state.

The plan acknowledges, however, that widening the road from its four to six lanes today to an eventual 12 lanes is impractical. Oracle Road has limited right of way for widening.

Some kind of improved transit — possibly a commuter rail line — will be considered to serve the project, state, Oro Valley and Pima County officials said Friday.

There also could be a resort accompanying the 15,900-home, 9,100-acre development proposed on state land north of Oro Valley, officials said Friday.

That, too, isn't certain because the development site has major features worthy of conservation, officials said: rocky and hilly land, with washes and other riparian areas.

Also, they said, people nervous about the prospect of 38,000 newcomers flocking to the development site east of the Tortolita Mountains should realize the plan is a long way from becoming reality.

The draft Arroyo Grande plan released Friday hasn't been approved by the state land commissioner or Oro Valley, said Michelle Muench, a Land Department official in Tucson.

It will take at least five years of planning and maybe 10 or 15 years before the department can start selling the land, said officials, who declined to give a specific start date. A lot of public involvement and comment will have to come before a development plan is approved and construction begins.

Unlike the 12,000-acre Southeast Side state-land plan recently proposed by Phoenix developer Westcor, no developer has approached the state for this project, Muench said.

"I don't have a crystal ball," said Muench, shaking her head at a news briefing on the Arroyo Grande project. "I'd be remiss in giving you a date."

The development would lie north of Oro Valley, west of Oracle Road and south of the Pinal County line. It would adjoin the unincorporated village of Catalina to the east.

On Friday, several residents of Catalina and the nearby SaddleBrooke retirement community were already expressing concerns about Arroyo Grande's effects.

They said — as the project's own draft plan points out — that Oracle Road is already overcrowded for much of its length south of Catalina through Oro Valley and unincorporated Pima County.

One resident, Linda Wilkinson, said the area's lone school, the K-8 Coronado School, is already overcrowded.

"I was sick to my stomach when I heard about the development," said Wilkinson, a Catalina resident of 13 years.

"The infrastructure here is going crazy. We have only one access, and traffic is phenomenal. If we have an accident, there is no way to get around it. We just have too many homes out here now."

The project will "wreak havoc on wildlife," said Catalina resident Kathie Schroeder, who rehabilitates injured wildlife at home. Deer, javelinas, coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions have been seen on this land.

Schroeder said she is worried that wildlife might not be able to keep sprinting across the land between the Catalina and Tortolita mountain ranges, despite the state's agreement to set aside 68 percent of Arroyo Grande as open space.

"The whole area they are talking about is the wildlife corridor, and they can't protect it without leaving it totally alone," Schroeder said. "Animals don't move through 15- feet-wide or 100-foot-wide corridors; they need all the space that is left."

In reply to such concerns, state, Oro Valley and county officials promised Friday that Arroyo Grande won't be developed "business as usual," with lush desert bladed bare, traffic overflowing roads before they can be improved, and water supplies pumped from a declining aquifer.

"If this was business as usual, this wouldn't be 68 percent open space, with employment centers to keep some of the traffic on site. We'd be creating a bedroom community that uses most of the land," said Arlan Colton, Pima County's planning director. "We'd be more like metro Phoenix."

The state is coming to Tucson as a partner with local governments and residents on this project, the Land Department's Muench said.

It is a "no brainer" that rapid transit would make sense for this project, whether a commuter rail line, more express buses or other alternatives, said Oro Valley Mayor Paul Loomis.

Until employment centers are in place, the planners have to find some way to move people back and forth. The cost of gasoline and the economy are going "to force us to get real," he said.

"You're not going to want to sit through five lights before you can move a mile," Loomis said.

But Paulette Stark, a SaddleBrooke resident of 12 years, said she expects more traffic and congestion from the project, at a time when it's already bumper- to-bumper for rush-hour drives.

She wistfully recalled that when she used to live near Chicago, it was easier getting around on that city's expressways or on commuter trains.

This new development, however, is probably inevitable, she said. "I think somebody's going to purchase this property, at sometime, maybe not today, because it is vacant land," she said. "More and more people are moving here, even though we try not to encourage too many people to move here."