"Do you really want Kyle to become known for having the largest truck stop in Texas?" Louis Obdyke asked Kyle City Council on Oct. 2.

Obdyke, an attorney based in San Marcos, was one of more than 20 speakers at the council meeting who spoke against the proposed Kyle Travel Center, which would include 200 parking spaces for commercial trucks, a truck service center, retail stores and an apartment complex.

Council answered in the negative after the developer's request failed with three yea votes and four nays.

City Council denied the request by PGI Investments, the developer of the property, to rezone the area, which is currently zoned for agriculture.

Some city officials and residents argued the development would provide a boon to the city's economy. Hugo Elizondo, a representative for the developer, said the Kyle Travel Center would provide about $500,000 in annual sales taxes and property taxes.

"What we've tried to do through this process is listen clearly to the concerns of the public, staff and citizens and to the greatest extent, address those beyond the regulatory requirements," Elizondo said.

Since the developer's original proposal was denied in 2012, Elizondo said PGI has increased buffers between the truck stop and the neighboring Blanco Vista subdivision. Elizondo also said the developer was proposing improvements to Post Road, which borders the development's northwestern edge.

On Sept. 24, the Kyle Planning and Zoning Commission voted 5-2 in favor of approving a request to rezone a 47.74-acre tract of land to allow the truck stop, retail stores and an apartment complex.

Mike Fulton, a former planning and zoning commissioner who voted in favor of approving the developer's rezoning request Sept. 24, echoed the commission's position last week that the truck stop's economic advantages were too great to turn the development down.

The city is currently $70 million in debt, and developments that bring increased sales and property tax revenues are a positive thing, said Fulton, whose term expired last week.

"I think it is necessary for a growing city to accept some debt, but I believe it's also necessary for a growing city to accept and encourage businesses in order to help offset the increased property tax with increased sales tax," he said.

Before the final vote, Kyle Mayor Lucy Johnson said she took exception with the developer's claim that they had promoted the city's tree ordinance, which was adopted in May and creates more strict guidelines for developers to follow when preserving trees in developments.

The ordinance, Johnson said, had been in the works since 2009. It passed in May as a result of PGI's original development proposal, which was submitted in 2012. That plan, Johnson said, involved "wholesale cutting down of trees."

"I'm generally unhappy that I would have to disapprove of a development that I genuinely think would help Kyle," Johnson said. "But I also can't sit here and have clear misrepresentations of the truth about what's in the [planned unit development] spoken to me and not say or do anything about it."

District 2 Councilwoman Becky Selbera, who voted in favor of the rezoning request, said she had been in support of the development because of the economic benefit it would bring to the city's south side, which she said has been lagging behind the rest of the city in terms of economic development.

"As you know, all the development is up north," Selbera said. "The south side, there is nothing there. I feel like if we brought in the truck stop, other development will come as well."

There is a one-year waiting period before PGI can resubmit the proposal, but the developer may request City Council waive that waiting period at any time.