At Wednesday’s meeting of the Lancaster city planning commission, senior planner Craig Lenhard said he and his staff will work with Lancaster County planning staff and Community Basics Inc., the Sunnyside developer, to come up with a blueprint that will “hash out the dozens of issues” in dispute among the various parties. That should clear the way for the housing development to be built.

“We felt it best to do a plan that addresses the mutual concerns, and once everyone is happy with that and has some level of comfort that this is the project we’re going to get, then all the county needs to do is enter into a typical developers agreement,” Lenhard said.

The meeting is set for Oct. 6.

The Sunnyside project, which has been on the table since 1999, calls for construction of 300 apartments, town houses and single-family homes on the 28-acre peninsula, the largest piece of undeveloped property in the city.

The development would be a joint effort of the county, the county redevelopment authority and Community Basics Inc.

In December 2003, former county commissioners Paul Thibault and Ron Ford attended a ceremonial groundbreaking for the project, saying residents would be moving in by the spring of 2005.

However, in 2004 the new board of commissioners — Molly Henderson, Pete Shaub and Dick Shellenberger — put the project on hold as they looked into acquiring more space for the county’s needs.

The commissioners proposed moving county offices to the peninsula later that year, but they dropped that plan after acquiring by eminent domain the former Armstrong building at 150 N. Queen St.

In 2005, the commissioners considered keeping an additional 15 acres on the peninsula surrounding the county Youth Intervention Center for future needs. They also mulled building a new county morgue next to the juvenile detention center, but later they scrapped those plans.

In January, the commissioners announced their support of Community Basics’ plan to develop the site, but conditions they imposed soured the idea with the developer.

“We were hoping the contract could be updated just by tweaking the dates,” Lenhard said. “Instead what was basically a brand new developers’ agreement was written up which was a non-starter, as far as Community Basics was concerned. It put too much county control over the entire project, almost as if the county was the developer and not Community Basics.”

Lenhard said under the old agreement, Community Basics would not be able to submit a plan or get financing to hire an engineer, because the group would not be the equitable owner of the site.

He is optimistic a new agreement will clear the obstacles so “engineers can be brought in to do a final plan and get the project going.”

Also at Wednesday’s meeting, the commissioners approved a 14-intersection traffic study for a $5 million expansion at Park City Center.

The plan will add 36,500 square feet to the southern and western side of the Bon Ton store, and 21,300 square feet of retail space along the western side of the mall, stretching from the West Mall entrance up to but not including Cold Stone Creamery.

Two weeks ago, the board waived a preliminary plan requirement for the shopping center but tabled the mall’s traffic study plan, which looked at 12 surrounding intersections.

At that meeting, Tom Smithgall of High Real Estate Group urged a broader traffic study. High hopes to build the “Crossings at Conestoga Creek,” a $100 million open-air shopping center on a 90-acre farm opposite Long’s Park.

Smithgall argued for a traffic study that would include the High project, Park City and other major businesses along Harrisburg Pike. He said that was better than a piecemeal approach if the traffic woes along Harrisburg Pike are to be solved.

The city planners did not feel the expansion at Park City would generate much additional traffic, because it increases floor space by only 4 percent.