In one of its most important votes of the year, a divided City Council will vote tonight on the hotly-debated Citywide Rezoning Petition, determining the course of housing and development in the city for the foreseeable future.

The council, due to consider the city's Planning Board reccomendation--a proposal three years in the making--tonight, will instead choose between the original plan and a last-minute alternative proposed by Councillors Kathleen L. Born and David P. Maher.

On Friday, Born and Maher submitted, as expected, a revised rezoning plan to the council, which will remove large sections of East Cambridge and an area near Alewife from the petition.

The petition aims to produce more affordable housing, restrict new development and reduce traffic in the city by reforming specific zoning guidelines for Cambridge's neighborhoods.

Born said decisions on East Cambridge should be deferred until the East Cambridge Planning Study, a $500,000 replanning process approved by the council in Jan. 2000, produces its report.

Born said that she thinks the revised plan will have enough support to carry the required majority of seven out of the nine councillors.

"I think the original proposal taken as a whole didn't have the support. But I think this does," Born said.

Members of the East Cambridge Planning Study and at least one councillor, however, are against the Born-Maher proposal.