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Fairfax County planners are inching closer to making pivotal decisions about the transformation of Tysons Corner: How much development will be allowed, and when?

"The big-picture growth strategy is to concentrate future growth in centers, and Tysons is one of those centers," said James Zook, director of planning and zoning.

Now, the Planning Commission committee preparing a blueprint for the urban core in Tysons must draw its conclusions about how much development will be allowed around the four new Metrorail stations in the area and what infrastructure must be in place before new high-rises start to go up.

One task will be to pick a side in the density debate, settling a longstanding disagreement between county land-use planners and members of the Tysons Land Use Task Force about how much Tysons should be allowed to grow. The task force, which developed the vision plan for the area, says higher densities are needed to encourage the type of development the task force advocates.

Last week, county transportation planners released an outline of what road and transit projects will be needed to accommodate certain levels of development. County staff previously estimated what the other public facilities needs will be as Tysons grows, including police and fire stations, parks and schools.

As part of the new Tysons plan, county leaders must decide what "triggers" will allow development to proceed. There are several approaches to accomplish this, Zook said.

One technique is to tell a builder he has to build his project in phases, tied to the completion of certain infrastructure. This, however, does not work well for small projects, Zook said, and can hamper a builder's ability to get financing for a project.

Another idea is to encourage multiple property owners to come together and allow them to finance a share of the public improvements in their section of Tysons. Building would go ahead from there, with no triggers, he said. Commissioners like this concept because it would allow the planned grid of streets in Tysons to be built faster, for example.

"It sounds like it could help with consolidation; it could help with coordination," Commissioner Rodney Lusk said. "Assuming we could get a group of developers that would agree."

Despite the two major transportation projects now under way in Tysons Corner, there are many other additions needed to handle the expected growth in the next 10 years, according to Dan Rathbone of the Fairfax County Department of Transportation. Transportation planners used computer models to determine the timing of needs.

Even with the completion of the high-occupancy toll lanes and the four Metrorail stations, anticipated in 2013 -- as well as the accompanying widening of Route 7 around the rail stations, new sidewalks and improved bus service -- Tysons will not have much room to grow above its current 44 million square feet of development, according to the report.

Between 2013 and 2020, to accommodate up to 60 million square feet of development in Tysons, the full 23-mile Metro extension to Washington Dulles International Airport must be completed, along with a number of road improvements in Tysons. These include widening Route 7 from Route 123 to the Capital Beltway, starting the grid of streets and building new ramps from key Tysons local roads to the Dulles Toll Road.

"This being only 10 years ahead is very sensitive to where development takes place," Rathbone noted, referring to which portion of the street grid will be the highest priority.