A seven-week period of public consultation on the Teignbridge Local Development Framework – the radical scheme that includes 1,700 homes at Kingsteignton and a further 1,100 elsewhere – is to start next Friday.
Added to developments already in the pipeline, the extra homes means Teignbridge will expand by 7,500 households by 2016.
On Monday, senior Teignbridge councillors backed the Core Strategy Preferred Options Report, a move which triggered the consultation. Although speculation continues as to where the new buildings and associated infrastructure may go, actual development sites won't be known for at least another year meaning residents can only comment in principle.
All that is known so far is that former clay pits near Kingsteignton have been earmarked to allow Newton Abbot to expand northwards and that towns such as Dawlish, Teignmouth, Chudleigh and Bovey Tracey will have to find room for 790 houses.
Land on village fringes could be opened up for affordable housing and district-wide some 36 ha (89 acres) of land, mostly in and around Newton Abbot, will be released for new factories, offices and warehousing.
Ashburton and much of Buckfastleigh come under the Dartmoor National Park Authority and are largely exempt from the same pressures to expand.
On Monday, Cllr Alan Connett, leader of Teignbridge Council, told members of the executive that a decision on the expansion plans was 'urgent' if public consultation was to get underway.
He promised, however, that subsequent decisions would be given more time. 'When the decisions we make are the end game it won't be urgent,' he said.
Cllr Connett fended off various comments from his colleagues about the preferred options saying they could comment along with the public. 'Ultimately this document will change as a result of public consultation,' he said.
Teignbridge will contact households inviting their comments and stage a series of public meetings starting at Newton Abbot Racecourse on April 5. Any revisions to the report will be adopted in September after which Teignbridge will submit their plans to the Government Office South West for approval.