The latest forum intended to gather community input on the future use of a large portion of land owned by commercial salt company Cargill focused on a hot-button issue for the region: housing.

Dozens of residents who gathered Thursday night at the Little Fox Theater in Redwood City peppered a panel of housing experts with questions about the future of affordable housing along the Peninsula.

Housing has been mentioned as one of the options for Cargill's 1,433-acre site near Highway 101, where the company plans to phase out its industrial operations over the next couple of years. Other suggestions include keeping the area as open space instead of developing it, building mixed-use developments or parkland, or some combination of those options.

Cargill and development firm DMB Associates, Inc. are in the process of gathering feedback on what issues are important to Redwood City residents to help guide decisions on how to use the land, though no plan for the area has been developed yet.

Thursday night, all five panelists, ranging from a former Realtor to the head of San Mateo County's housing department, warned of the dangers of not having enough affordable housing in the area.

Teifion Rice-Evans, executive vice president of consulting firm Economic & Planning Systems, said the lack of affordable housing could drive jobs and economic development away from Redwood City as businesses get frustrated and move to other areas if their employees cannot afford to live in the area.

Asked by a resident if more homes would make housing more affordable, John Gieseker, former president of the San Mateo County Association of Realtors, answered bluntly to murmurs from the crowd: "I don't think you'll ever have affordable homes in San Mateo County."

Gieseker said it is important to make housing more available to more people through constructing higher-density projects and making smaller residences available to aging couples to free up larger homes for families.

Several residents suggested building higher-density condos on the Cargill land to maximize its use and make it easier for people to own a residence other than a single-family home.

"If we have some amount of money out of this saltworks project, let's put it to the most use that we can," said resident Richard Panelli.

Others expressed frustration that there is no plan for the site to comment on yet. John Bruno, general manager of Redwood City Saltworks, said decision makers want to make sure they understand the desires of the community prior to sitting down to put a plan together.

"It's a very large piece of property and you only get to do it right once," Bruno said.

The next forum will be held June 4 at 6 p.m. at the Little Fox Theater in Redwood City and will focus on open space and recreation.