WATERLOO — As light rail transit construction starts digging up streets, Waterloo officials are getting ready to manage the transformation it's expected to bring to the city once trains start running in late 2017.

"What does LRT mean to this community and how do we shape the change the LRT will bring?" asks Adam Lauder, the city planner overseeing a "station planning area" visioning process starting with a public meeting Tuesday.

Issues include: how to encourage and manage more, denser housing; improved cycling and pedestrian access; where to encourage and how to shape new employment areas; how to keep road traffic moving near stations and where should cars park.

"What we're not doing for station area planning, is where everywhere through station areas needs to be highrise development," he said.

Nor does the study look at changing what's already working in uptown Waterloo. That area is already considered "transit ready," with policies and zoning in place to handle "medium density" growth associated with the trains, Lauder said.

Three LRT stops are planned in uptown Waterloo: King and Allen, King Street at the Public Square, and Caroline and Willis Way.

It's land within a 10-minute walk of the city's other five light rail stops that Lauder wants public input on:

• Seagram, in Waterloo Park, just north of the uptown district.
• University of Waterloo, along the east side of the campus, between University Avenue and Columbia Street
• Research and Technology Park, near Wes Graham Way and Hagey Boulevard
• Northfield, at Northfield Drive near the Conestoga Parkway
• Conestoga Mall.

Light rail tracks will continue south into Kitchener along King Street, eventually ending at Fairview Park mall. Kitchener is undertaking its own planning process for lands along the streetcar line in that city.

GrandLinq was hired last year by Waterloo Region to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the trains over 30 years, at a cost of $1.9 billion.

About 50 people have already contacted Lauder about the Tuesday's drop-in session, ranging from citizens to university students to landowner representatives. Doors open at 5:45 at Knox Presbyterian Church, 50 Erb St. W.

Lauder offers three key questions to chew on to start the planning process, as people are invited to review what's happened in other cities and then brainstorm in breakout sessions.

What's unique or important in the station areas? What opportunities or issues are there in each area? What will station areas look like in 10, 20 or 30 years?

All the ideas will be reviewed and a proposed plan will return to a public meeting in June for more discussion.

City council is expected to look at recommendations by year's end, with the goal of having a light rail transit planning document ready in late 2016, a year before trains start running, Lauder said.