Leander City Council unanimously turned down a rezoning request for a development in west Leander that was proposed to hold up to 1,200 homes during its Thursday night meeting.

The roughly 317-acre planned unit development known as Chapman Parks was proposed to sit northeast of the intersection of Mesa Vista Drive and CR 280. The property is currently zoned single-family rural and borders the Greatwood Estates community and land outside of the city limits, according to city documents.

The request for the project included zoning for neighborhood residential, cottage housing, local commercial, local office, single-family urban, single-family compact, single-family limited and single-family townhouse use components.

After several area residents raised concerns about the proposed development during the city’s Planning and Zoning meeting Feb. 22, members of the commission voted not to recommend approval of the rezoning to City Council at a vote of 5-2. About 20 area residents also spoke against the development during a March 1 City Council meeting. During that meeting, council members voted to approve the first reading of the development at a vote of 4-3.

The project came before City Council for a second reading and final approval during the March 15 meeting, and about 25 people spoke against the development. Several area residents raised concerns about increased traffic, the possible strain on local schools, the project density, whether the development matches with current homes in the area and the state of CR 280, which was proposed to run through the development.

Michael Shangreaux, a resident of the neighboring Greatwood Estates community, asked council members to maintain the integrity of the neighborhoods already in the area.

“We’re not against any kind of development, everyone knows it’s going to happen, and we actually encourage it,” he said. “But we are going to be against development that doesn’t make sense for the area.”

Council Member Andrea Navarrette praised the developer of Chapman Parks for exceeding the city’s parkland dedication ordinance requirements, changing the project throughout the process in consideration of council concerns and said they had “an incredible plan.”

Navarrette had voted in favor of the rezoning request during the previous council meeting, but she said during the March 15 meeting she was no longer behind the development after examining further project details.

“It is too dense for [CR] 280,” she said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t tie down the developer of Greatwood [Estates] to make sure that he improved [CR] 280 to the level that it should have been done, and it’s already failing. And we’re determined to not let that happen again.”