Residents in Ottawa's west end are worried that the city is close to allowing a big developer to build on part of the environmentally-sensitive South March Highlands.

And the fears were ratcheted up Thursday after a city committee voted to rezone about 6 hectares of land along Terry Fox Drive in Kanata. Richcraft got its land re-zoned from environment protected to rural use allowing it to build limited housing here.

The city owns more than 450 hectares of the ecologically-rich area in Kanata, and Richcraft Homes has been appealing to the Ontario Municipal Board to have a part of that area re-zoned.

This has residents concerned that it is just a matter of time before the bulldozers start preparing the land, which is home to a wide assortment of wildlife.

"I am quite happy to keep my 42 acres in wilderness. That's the way it's been kept since we arrived there," Cormac O'Connell, a resident on Huntmar Drive, told CBC News.

"As recently as the last three months we've seen Blanding turtles, black bear and milk snakes. If we break this into small little islands of little pieces of park-land that are not connected, these animals will go away."

The lands in questions are just outside the city's western urban boundary. Developers like Richcraft are now at the Ontario Municipal Board trying to force the city to expand its borders.

Developers have bought hundreds of acres of environmentally protected land there in hopes that in five or 10 years they will be able to build even more high density housing inside the new city boundary.

But neighbors and environmentalists say it is an area worth fighting to save.

"Any of the politicians who think it's not (worth fighting for) better have another look," said Bob Abell. "This is not a Kanata issue, this is a city of Ottawa issue. It's our heritage we're talking about. Anyone who doesn't think so better wake up and smell the coffee."

With reporting by CBC's Cory O'Kelly