The developers who for six months have tried to push a contentious Whitefish housing project through yards of red tape, while taking painstaking steps to address the concerns of neighbors, have withdrawn their application with the city.
The Whitefish City Council was slated to resume discussion of the proposed 2nd Street Residences at its Sept. 3 meeting, but applicants Will MacDonald and Sean Averill of Community Infill Partners pulled the application, saying they intended to retool the project plans, which have already been heavily revised.
The contentious project was twice reviewed and tabled by the city planning board in the months prior to recommending the project to Whitefish City Council. The proposal moved forward despite public resistance to the revised site plan, which has been pared back to quell opposition from neighborhood residents whose litany of complaints went on for four hours at the council’s July 18 meeting.
The developers champion the project, which includes affordable housing units, as a critical asset to the community. They will again revise the plan to construct 143 housing units on 24 acres of open land, located on East Second Street east of Cow Creek and north of the intersection with Armory Road.
In its third iteration, the development has undergone significant revisions but continued to elicit strong opposition from a packed chamber at Whitefish City Hall.
Neighbors complained that the project is too dense and does not fit the character of the neighborhood. Only a handful of residents, along with the members of the development team, voiced support for the project during a city council meeting that was beset by fervent public comments.