The Boone Town Council on Thursday unanimously voted to deny a request for a 56,550-gallons-per-day water allotment by a Florida-based developer for a multi-family apartment complex off of the N.C. 105 extension.

Vestcor Communities planned a 377-bedroom multi-family project — called “High Country Village” on a conceptual site plan — at 115 Beverly Heights Ave. in Boone on a 14-acre tract currently owned by the G.H. Winkler Family Limited Partnership.

Several council members stated they felt the project as designed was too dense for the location.

The property is currently used as a driving range operated by Mountaineer Golf Center.

Portions of the tract are zoned B-3 General Business and R-3 Multi-Family, as well as falling in the Viewshed Protection Area and highway Corridor District. Tracts surrounding the property are zoned B-3 General Business, R-1 Single Family and R-3 Multi-Family.

Project engineer Jason Gaston of Valor Engineering presented information about the project to the council. Gaston said if the water allocation were approved, the next step would be to seek a special use permit before the Boone Board of Adjustment.

Vestcor Communities President Will Morgan also spoke to the council.

Morgan described the units as a “luxury product” that “caters to young professionals, professors, medical individuals, healthcare, young married couples with no kids, typically.”

Council members, as they have with past multi-family project requests, peppered the applicant with questions about how the development would be marketed to the workforce and whether some units could be designated as affordable housing.

According to the town’s definition, an affordable rental dwelling unit is defined as a unit for which the rent is no more than 25 percent of the monthly area median income for a family of four.

“We did not contemplate that in this business model,” Morgan said, adding that he would be interested in developing affordable housing at another site in Boone.

Several residents of the nearby R-1 neighborhood spoke against the project.

“My biggest concern is traffic flow,” said Scott Warren of Beverly Heights Ave. “We cannot handle the density that they’re proposing on this property.”

Kathryn Cornett of Olancha Avenue expressed doubts that the units would be homes for young professionals, professors and medical employees.

“To me this is very sugar-coated student housing,” she said.

But Morgan disputed this opinion, asserting the project is not structured as student housing, which are typically four-bedroom, four-bath apartments, rented by the bedroom, with all-inclusive rent payments.

“That is not the intent of this project,” he told the council.

Instead, the one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments will be rented by the apartment, he said.