Calgary's long-range civic blueprint, Plan It, reads like something concocted in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Denver or Portland 20 years ago--and that's a bad thing, a U. S. economist said Tuesday.

In their campaign against Plan It's prescriptions for a denser, more transit-centric Calgary, homebuilder and developer groups have brought Randal O'Toole of the Cato Institute to discuss the plan's pratfalls with their members today. O'Toole sharply criticizes the "smart growth"principles those other cities have adopted, saying their changes have caused soaring house prices and excessively subsidized public transit.

"Plan It Calgary has decided that they know how people should live in the future, and so they're going to be inflexible to make sure that people live the right way,"he told the Herald editorial board Tuesday.

He said mixed-use complexes at transit hubs in Portland--like those Calgary proposed in Westbrook and Brentwood suburbs before Plan It's draft came out this month--required government support to be built.

Dennis Little, the industry's key negotiator on Plan It, argued the difficulties in finishing the Bridges project in Bridgeland points to a lack of demand for condo-style living in Calgary.

Plan It, which city council will consider in June, proposes that one-third of all new residential growth in the next 30 years occur in existing communities, and half of it in the next 60 years. That would allow Calgary to accommodate 1.3 million new people without annexing new land.

While the industry groups suggest this could sharply hinder their ability to provide the single-family homes Calgarians say they want, Pat Gordon, the city planner in charge of Plan It, said the plan welcomes continued suburban expansions, but with a bigger mix of housing types there.

"As of today, we have the equivalent of(developable)land for about 275,000 people, which is the equivalent of three Red Deers," Gordon said, referring to a city report released Tuesday on Calgary's growth potential.

That capacity is just in planned suburban areas within city limits. If unplanned areas were built slightly more densely than fringe communities like Tuscany--with more multifamily complexes-- Calgary's unbuilt areas could fit 845,000 new people, city geodemographics manager Darrell Burgess said.

O'Toole, who runs a blog called the "Antiplanner,"said the best example of truly smart growth is Houston, where developers have near-total control over how new communities grow, and argued no government-run planning program has worked well.

Robert Clark, vice-president of Carma Developers, disagreed.

"We would say Calgary has been well planned. . . upuntilthis point in time," Clark told the editorial board. "There's no reason we can't improve, but we also have to think about whether in fact we're going to continue to respect what people want."

The developers also expressed frustration about the lack of clear goals for the first five or 10 years of Plan It's six-decade span. Asked about that, Gordon said the city will focus on providing services and infrastructure to 28 fringe communities that aren't "complete"with municipal amenities like fire stations and transit service.

The document's focus on the"complete communities" has impressed Bob van Wegen, planner for the Federation of Calgary Communities.

"Those newer communities want the dust to stop flying and the buses to start arriving sooner than they do," van Wegen said. But he agreed with the business groups there should be clearer short-term targets so people can better understand Plan It.