COEUR d'ALENE - The city of Coeur d'Alene is asking that the mixed-use workforce housing and retail development project planned for midtown be put on hold until stakeholders agree what should go up in the center section of town.

A draft of a letter written this month by City Councilman Mike Kennedy asks The Housing Company, the nonprofit proposing the building plan, to work with midtown neighbors and Lake City Development Corp. to create a project that the whole neighborhood can support.

"In the interim, please do not move forward with the project as it is currently planned," the letter requests.

The General Services Committee recommended Monday the city send the letter. It will go to the City Council next week for approval, after which, it would be sent to Douglas Peterson, THC director, as well as LCDC Chairman Denny Davis.

Several midtown neighbors oppose the plan as it is.

The proposed $9 million project originally aimed to sell condos atop commercial space on Fourth Street and Roosevelt Avenue. But in the several years since the idea was pitched, the nonprofit organization shifted the plan to rental units because the economic market favors rentals over condos. The units were geared for people who earn 60 percent of the median area income, called workforce housing. But dozens of midtown neighbors opposed the idea, saying they preferred owner-occupied units over rentals and that they were left out of the loop as the plan changed.

Because of those concerns, which were aired during a March meeting between stakeholders in midtown, the city decided to ask the project leaders to put the idea on hold.

THC said Monday it would.

"We've always considered the mayor and the council and the folks at LCDC our community partners," Peterson said. "Obviously, if our community partners want to take a step back to see where we are in the process, as one of the partners, I would heed their suggestion and put the project on hold and figure out where we're going."

Peterson added that the company could hear back as soon as next week whether it will be awarded around $5 million in federal tax credits for the project. If the Idaho Housing and Finance Association doesn't approve the tax-credit application, the project wouldn't go through anyway.

LCDC, the city's urban renewal agency, has pledged $540,000 in financial support for the project. But that pledge also depends on whether the tax credit application is approved.

The letter states that the city would be willing to assist in facilitating ideas and meetings between all people involved as they work to create a mixed-use development or "other project for that parcel of property" that the neighborhood would support.

Tony Berns, LCDC executive director, wrote that LCDC has maintained all along that it will consider input from all interested parties prior to committing to the midtown partnership.

"We appreciate the city's interest and look forward to working cooperatively with all parties as we move ahead with the revitalization of midtown," he wrote in an email.