The city is moving forward with plans to determine the future of one of the city’s last undeveloped frontiers, the wetlands-filled and shipping-heavy West Shore of Staten Island.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation last week put out a request for proposals for a land use and transportation plan for the area, part of an effort to devise a growth strategy for the space more than six times the size of Central Park.

The extraordinary amount of undeveloped land in the area — the majority of the West Shore’s 5,700 acres includes brownfields, wetlands, and Fresh Kills Park, according to the Department of City Planning — is sure to attract the eyes of developers accustomed to the other four boroughs’ tight land constraints.

The plan is a hot topic among local politicians, who have clamored for a rezoning for years amid complaints of ad-hoc residential development throughout the area. Adding any more housing would further clog the already overstrained roadways, elected officials say, and as such, development should be confined to industry or commercial uses.

Council Member James Oddo, who represents much of the West Shore, called any plan that contains provisions for new housing “dead on arrival.”

“The last thing I want there is additional residential community,” Mr. Oddo said. “Give us some economic development. Give us some locations where Staten Islanders can work in their own borough.”

Many involved in real estate find it hard to imagine the city would completely put a halt to the development of housing in New York City’s fastest-growing borough, especially one with such a historically residential character.

“I can’t imagine the study would shy away from residential — it’s potentially very lucrative,” a finance professor at the College of Staten Island, Jonathan Peters, said. “The question is how do you make it workable?”

Mr. Peters and many community leaders are pushing the idea of building a light rail on the West Shore in an effort to alleviate congestion. The rail could cross into New Jersey and allow commuters to link up with the PATH system. The city is studying the concept.

In a sign it could be open to the creation of the light rail or other new transit in the area, the city, in its request for proposals for the land use contract, acknowledges that the existing infrastructure is already “inadequate to support current or new development scenarios.”

For now, the city is mum on its preferred use for the site, as the Bloomberg administration is going into the process open-minded, a spokeswoman for the Department of City Planning, Rachaele Raynoff, said.

Passions are sure to run high over this underused section of the island. Just a mention of the plan to build a Nascar track, which fizzled last December amid community opposition, can inspire an impassioned rant among opponents and proponents still sour from the fight.

Officials say the 675-acre site on the northwest corner of the island, owned by the International Speedway Corp., is being eyed for uses related to the neighboring Howland Hook container port.