The idea is to ensure affordable housing gets a cut of new homes Seattle officials allow landowners to build when they change zoning.

But residents and landowners in the Interbay neighborhood worry such a requirement would hamper their revitalization efforts, which include a neighborhood assessment to renovate streets and sidewalks, and a proposed rezone to allow taller, denser development between Queen Anne and Magnolia.

Seattle already requires developers of new apartment and condo towers downtown to contribute an average of $19 per square foot of upper floors into an affordable-housing fund. A new resolution and comprehensive plan policy the City Council passed Monday say city officials must incorporate such a requirement when rezoning land for development. It also suggests criteria for spending the money.

The measures note that city officials will have rezoning plans soon for Interbay's Dravus Street area, South Lake Union, South Downtown, Northgate and multifamily zones throughout the city. The mention of Interbay caught the attention of area residents and landowners.

About 70 percent of the area that landowners want to rezone is vacant or underused, said Bob Derry, executive director of the Interbay Neighborhood Association.

"It's not currently a high-demand neighborhood for housing and such. So it would be taking quite a risk for anybody coming in to build there," Derry said. He said the fee could discourage development.

Derry said landowners already were planning to provide a public benefit through the street-and-sidewalk assessment. He and Ray Bartel, co-chairman of Interbay Neighborhood Association and pastor of Interbay Covenant Church, said areas such as Belltown and South Lake Union have more expensive housing and the fee could be absorbed more easily there as a cost of doing business.

They also said the housing fee would defeat efforts to make new Interbay housing affordable to typical workers.

"We're not looking to build high-priced condos in the area," Bartel said.

Although council members left Interbay a part of the resolution and policy, Derry said he was confident they would consider the area's issues in reviewing the eventual proposal.

"They realize that it's a different place than, say, South Lake Union or downtown," he said.

The City Council has called previously for including the affordable housing payments in rezoning. The resolution mentions Interbay and other neighborhoods because that's where officials are working on rezones, Councilman Tom Rasmussen said Monday.

"It simply names those as ones which may be coming to the council next year," said Rasmussen, who is chairman of the council's Housing, Human Services and Health Committee.

Also Monday, some council members expressed impatience that they hadn't seen the Interbay rezone proposal yet, despite asking for it to be done in July. Alan Justad, spokesman for the Department of Planning and Development, said planners plan to finish recommendations in the first quarter of next year. He said this would include the proposed district to fund street and sidewalk renovations.

Derry speculated that city officials held off on bringing the plan forward to wait for the housing fee.

"We're concerned that we're somewhat of a guinea pig on this project," he said.

While officials have not yet worked out the Interbay details, Justad noted that downtown's affordable housing requirements allow developers to contribute to a housing fund or include affordable housing in their projects.

The council's new suggested guidelines for spending affordable housing funds call for housing to be consistent with goals and policies in neighborhood plans; close to high-capacity transit; sited to encourage diverse neighborhoods; close to services such as child care, job training and community centers; and in historic or unique older buildings, where practicable and appropriate.

The resolution also asks city officials to report back to council members on the progress of the affordable housing program twice a year, starting by the second quarter of 2008.