Crafting plans to remake the ailing Wilde Lake Village Center and winning approval for them will "take every bit of two years" before any actual work can begin, according to Geoffrey Glazer, vice president of Kimco Realty, the center's owner.

In the meantime, he said, the still-developing overhaul of Columbia's nearby Town Center area into an urbanized downtown is making it virtually impossible to attract new merchants to the town's oldest — and now partially empty — village center, roughly a mile away.

"The downtown is clearly my competition. I've got to clearly separate myself from what downtown is" to entice merchants, Glazer told a crowd of about 200 residents at a meeting Monday night at Slayton House.

The new county zoning process for major redevelopment of Columbia's neighborhood retail hubs, approved by the county council last year, is designed to move slowly and cautiously to give residents more opportunities to play an important role. But some were frustrated by the delays and didn't seem to understand at the required Kimco meeting.

"We're not proposing a plan here," Glazer told the crowd. Kimco officials were there to listen and write down ideas, he said. Then they will come back with a plan in several months.

With the center's anchor Giant supermarket closed for more than three years, followed by Produce Galore and other small businesses, some who came to offer suggestions for Kimco's plan expressed impatience and confusion.

"I wonder if all this planning is going to delay us getting a supermarket?" asked Charles Power.

"What is the difference between this meeting and the one in December?" asked Jeff Kamala, who operates a Crown gas station at the center's edge. "How long are you going to drag this out while we all close up?" he asked Glazer. After the more than two-hour meeting, Kamala said "meetings are fine, but when are they going to do something?"

Glazer explained that a meeting in mid-December was called by the village board to firm up the community's own desires for the center, while this week's Kimco-sponsored session is required under the new law to give residents a chance to make those suggestions to the developer.

Under the law, Kimco will now produce a proposal and present it publicly in March or April. Two more community meetings are then required before that refined plan can even be submitted to the county government for review. Once county planners weigh in on it, it goes before the Planning Board for hearings and a recommendation, and then ultimately to the Zoning Board for hearings and a final decision. Since the Zoning Board, composed of county council members, typically doesn't hold sessions in the latter part of an election year like 2010, that too could delay things.

The issue has already been disputed for several years, since Kimco's unsuccessful attempt to win residents' support for razing the center and building 500 new apartments and 50,000 square feet of retail in its place. That idea was abandoned in favor of the new county zoning process for struggling village centers interested in adding large numbers of residential units.

But a more fundamental dispute arose at Monday night's meeting over what the boundaries of the village center should be under the new law. Glazer proposed including properties on the far periphery of the area along Little Patuxent Parkway, across school athletic fields from the center, as well as homes and condominiums west of Governor Warfield Parkway and Lynx Lane. That larger area controlled by the new law would, in effect boost the possible density on the 10-acres Kimco actually owns. Glazer said it would provide "more flexibility" in drawing a plan.

The community's plan suggested a much smaller center area, including Wilde Lake Middle and High schools, the Columbia Association's swim center, the Interfaith Center and Slayton House, along with the commercial properties and the village Green area. That also confused some residents.

"I am trying to figure out what's going on here," said Del. Elizabeth Bobo, who, with her husband, former county councilman Lloyd Knowles, have taken a strong interest in both the village center and downtown redevelopment plans. "Who are you to propose that all these properties should be within the village center boundary? I can't understand what's happening here. I've never seen anything like this in my life," the former county executive said.

Glazer said he will confer with the village board and come up with some boundary consensus.

Board chairwoman Nancy Alexander showed the crowd survey results showing that people strongly want a grocery store, and to preserve features like the village green and Slayton House, while perhaps adding some residential units.

Others offered their own suggestions, like a new pub, a diner, an unusual toy store, or some business like David's Natural Market that's unique to Wilde Lake, to create a new "center with a heart," as Edith Cord put it.

Lillian Shapiro's suggestion for "a good Jewish delicatessen" drew some laughs, but she also said she was confused.

"I thought you'd come in with your concept plan," she said. "I don't understand. You've been working at this for a long time," she said. Glazer replied, "we're following the process."

Ultimately, the questions returned to the desire for another grocery store.

"Have you offered free rent for the [former] Giant space?" asked Alan Klein, spokesman for the Coalition for Columbia's Downtown. Joel Broida said he's read newspaper articles about smaller groceries being a "new" retail trend.

Glazer said he won't discuss individual business contracts, but he did say that he has repeatedly tried to "entice" a grocer, to no avail. If he could find one to go into the 23,000 square foot Giant store space, he said, he wouldn't have had to go through the redevelopment and zoning process at all.

"We'd love to do it," he said.