CARLSBAD -- A community group known as Imagine Carlsbad will hold a meeting Monday night on Encina Power Station's development plans.

The group, which formed about two years ago, aims to improve the quality of life in Carlsbad and describes itself as apolitical. Its meeting, which is free and open to the public, is set for 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Carlsbad Senior Center, 799 Pine Ave.

Both city representatives and power station employees are expected to give presentations.

The company that owns the power plant -- NRG Energy -- is proposing to build a 540-megawatt plant, which could power nearly 400,000 homes. The equipment, which includes two smokestacks, would go on land between the railroad tracks and Interstate 5 along the south side of Agua Hedionda Lagoon. The area is east of the existing Encina power plant, and plans call for that huge concrete building to eventually be demolished.

The state has regulatory authority over the project, but Carlsbad officials have said they think the new equipment should go elsewhere. They prefer sites well east of Interstate 5, arguing that the proposed air-cooled power plant won't be an appropriate development on the prime coastal parcel.