An Aurora alderman Wednesday appealed the City Council Planning and Development Committee's approval of a plan to site a peak-usage electricity-generating power plant on the far northeast side of the city.

Ald. Robert O'Connor's action, taken two hours before a 5 p.m. deadline, sends the plan by Houston-based Reliant Energy to the full council, which could either vote on the plan or send it back to committee for further consideration.

"We're very pleased with Ald. O'Connor's thoughtful and cautious approach to this new industry," said Dianne R. Turnball, a consultant to Citizens Against Power Plants in Residential Areas and president of the Woodstock-based Center for Community Involvement.

Attempts to contact Reliant officials and Bruce Goldsmith, an attorney for the current owner of the land on which the plant would sit, were not successful.

In his appeal, O'Connor's second of the plan in less than a month, he raised five issues, including whether the 870-megawatt, natural gas-fired plant meets the definition of a public utility, an allowable use under the 1976 plan for the industrial property on which the plant would sit.

Whether a so-called peaker plant--the energy from which is sold to electric companies during peak-usage periods, particularly hot summer days--is a public utility was the prime issue raised by CAPPRA.

O'Connor also raised the question of whether a specific arrangement had been made with the Fox Metro Water Reclamation District as to the disposal of any waste water.

He also asked whether a covenant could be established to prohibit permanently the use of land designated for open space in the plan. Reliant's plan includes 70 acres of open space, 30 of which could be used for recreation, on the 103-acre site southeast of Eola and Butterfield Roads.

Finally, O'Connor questioned "the intent and enforceability" of Reliant's statement that "the facility does not and will not have a detrimental effect on real estate values," and whether a commitment to not contest local property taxes under $800,000 places a ceiling on those payments.

Whether any of the city's other nine aldermen or mayor have remaining concerns about the plant remains to be seen. Mayor David Stover has said he's satisfied with Reliant's plan, and Ald. Tess Wackerlin, in whose 1st Ward the plant would lie, said she felt Reliant had met all city criteria.

"Reliant has gone to great lengths to try to accommodate everybody," she said earlier in the week.

She questioned the legal grounds of the appeal and said she believed the number of people opposed to the facility was dwindling.

At a public hearing on the plant held at City Hall last month, hundreds of DuPage County residents from northeast Aurora, Warrenville, and unincorporated Naperville and Winfield Townships expressed opposition to the plant.