The plan calls for spreading the San Diego State University campus outside its 280-acre boundaries and pushing into the neighborhoods in the College and Navajo-Del Cerro areas and Alvarado Road by Interstate 8.

To accommodate more students, the university wants to double student housing, provide faculty housing and expand graduate programs.

It is even considering building a retirement home for alumni, staff and faculty.

"Nothing is going to pop up overnight," said SDSU facilities director Tony Fulton. "If the budget changes in the state, it could drive everybody away for years. We're trying to be optimistic in our planning. We don't know if it will ever happen."

The growth plan will be available for public review and comment in January, when the environmental impact will be considered.

Six months later, the plan will be considered by California State University officials. Once the plan is approved in concept, it would be developed in more detail and approval would be required by multiple agencies, including the San Diego City Council, California State University trustees and the state Legislature.

The reason for the expansion is the projected population increase that could bring as many as 700,000 more students to California colleges over the next 20 years, including the state's largest high school graduating class in history in 2010.

Fulton said the plan is to allow "slow growth" of 3 percent yearly over the next two decades to the maximum 42,000.

Likely to generate objections is the proposed development for faculty housing on 34 acres the university owns off Adobe Falls Road and Waring Road .

"It's full of graffiti and homeless people now," said Fulton, who acknowledged that he expects neighborhood opposition. "The intent is not to bulldoze it all, but to make it an asset."

The Adobe Falls area near Del Cerro was once a wilderness with waterfalls and it served as a popular swimming hole decades ago. The university wants to build faculty housing there, as colleges in higher-priced areas nationwide have been doing to attract faculty with subsidized housing.

The university plans to increase student housing as well. Although SDSU expanded its dormitories and apartments over the past three years on and near campus, it still has space for only 10 percent of its students. An additional 300-bed dorm is in the works on campus, plus a 1,300-bed apartment-style housing complex off campus.

University officials also say they are negotiating with private developers to build off-campus student housing within walking distance of San Diego Trolley stops in La Mesa and Grantville. The campus trolley station is expected to open in the spring.

Another proposal is to move academic divisions off campus to university-owned land nearby on Alvarado Road off I-8. The university is already using some of the office space for research programs. Administrators hope to build a new education building on 8.5 acres by Alvarado Medical Center, and move some or part of the colleges of Engineering and Health and Human Services there.