Beaver Pond is to be surrounded by a housing development, with 3,200 homes to be built on 200 hectares of forest. (CBC)

Homebuilders are poised to clear a large swath of forest in Kanata to make way for a long-planned development, in spite of strong opposition from residents.

At stake are 26 hectares of the South March Highlands the city had considered buying, but instead settled for a preserved strip linking Beaver Pond with Trillium Woods.

Barbara Lapalme, who walks her dogs along the wooded trails of the South March Highlands, said she can't understand why the property isn't being protected.

"There's tonnes of people that use it, I mean it really is a wonderful area to walk, to ski, and it's kind of like the last kind of bastion of land that there is around here, and people live here because of this land. And it's going," she said.

But opponents aren't giving up just yet.

Steve Hulai, president of the Kanata Lakes Community Association, said he hopes the recent discovery of what could be Algonquin artifacts and burial mounds will slow the clear-cutting.

"This needs to be done in the spring, because it's really inappropriate to ignore the facts of three now-known archeological sites which are in this forest, which could be twice the age of the Egyptian pyramids," Hulai said.

The man who planned and developed Kanata, Bill Teron, said the National Capital Commission could be the Beaver Ponds' last hope.

"Where there are storm sewers, and sewers, and buses running already — prepaid by all of us — they could be utilizing it, swapping this land for land within the Greenbelt that is within their studies of where could there be sensitive growth," he said.

There's no sign the NCC is interested in any such trade and the developer says land-clearing could begin later this week.