Mounting questions about the fate of Collier County’s rural land deserve a thorough review, a county advisory board said Thursday.

The county’s 2002 rural growth plan is undergoing a five-year review after protecting tens of thousands of acres from development and laying the groundwork for Ave Maria University and the proposed new town of Big Cypress east of Golden Gate Estates.

The county adopted the 2002 plan after losing a legal challenge filed by the state Department of Community Affairs and backed by the Florida Wildlife Federation and Collier County Audubon Society. Then-Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet ordered the county to develop a new plan.

The county’s Planning Commission recommended Thursday that county commissioners accept the findings of a first phase technical report on the results of the 2002 plan — but then went further, forwarding lists of issues the board wants to see addressed in a second phase of the review.

The lists, from Planning Commission Chairman Mark Strain and environmental groups, outline concerns that the 2002 plan will unleash too much growth, push out agriculture and fall short on the environment.

“The Phase II report obviously is going to be where the intensity of the questioning is going to be,” Strain said.

A county-appointed citizens committee has been meeting since late 2007 to write the technical report and to weigh possible changes to the 2002 plan.

The voluntary plan, written by consultants for the county’s largest landowners, divides almost 200,000 acres around Immokalee into places to protect and places to allow development. By preserving land designated for protection, landowners earn credits to increase development on land designated for growth. Landowners can either use the credits or sell them to developers.

So far, landowners have preserved 24,000 acres and have applied for credits to preserve another 30,000.

The town of Ave Maria and Ave Maria University is approved for almost 11,000 homes on 5,000 acres, and the town of Big Cypress is proposed to have almost 9,000 homes on about 3,600 acres.

Among Strain’s concerns is that the growth plan awards too many credits for development and encourages preservation of land otherwise protected by state and federal environmental agencies.

He also questions whether development will harm water quality in preserve areas and suggests a closer look at how development in the rural area will affect the county’s road-building plan, drinking water supply, affordable housing and hurricane evacuation.

A list of concerns compiled by the Florida Wildlife Federation and Collier County Audubon Society suggests a new look at whether the areas designated for preservation adequately protect habitat for the endangered Florida panther. The groups suggest, for example, that no development be allowed south of Oil Well Road or at the intersection of Oil Well Road and State Road 29, particularly the northwest corner, where an adult male panther was found dead in April.

Besides echoing concerns about protecting panther habitat, the Conservancy calls for a ban on golf courses and on farming in areas that are not voluntarily protected from development.

The groups also suggest requiring distances between rural developments to avoid the creation of mega-towns, standards to reduce light pollution from growing towns and further incentives to protect agriculture.

Collier County has defended the 2002 plan from criticism, including from the state Department of Community Affairs, which will have a hand in the five-year review.

Collier County Manager Jim Mudd sent a letter to DCA Secretary Tom Pelham in February to praise the plan’s record on environmental protection, preserving agriculture and creating jobs at Ave Maria.

The letter says the county was at a crossroads when the Cabinet ordered the new plan in 1999.

“We view this county’s response to this crisis as a significant accomplishment,’’ the letter says.

The chairman of the RLSA review committee said he is open to addressing whatever concerns county commissioners direct the committee to take up.

“I feel that for this program to be effective, we need to air this out,” committee chairman Ron Hamel, also executive director of the Gulf Citrus Growers Association.

The review committee already is wrestling with additional incentives to protect agriculture and plans to take up environmental policies at a May 6 meeting.

The committee, which has been meeting monthly at Ave Maria University, is working under a January 2009 deadline to report back to county commissioners.

Hamel said Thursday that deadline might have to be extended.