The principal developer of a planned mixed-income development off Deans Bridge Road said he won't go where he's not wanted after residents protested and Augusta commissioners refused to support the project Tuesday.

Bruce Gunter, the president of Progressive Redevelopment Inc., said Wednesday there's a 99 percent chance the development team won't proceed with what he said is a good project despite residents' outdated and wrong impressions of it.

Mr. Gunter also said Augusta officials demonstrated the "worst civic leadership" he's ever witnessed.

"Other developers won't want to go there if this is the way you do business," he said.

The proposed mixed-use development was to be a project of Progressive Development; Augusta Affordable Housing Corp., an agency of the Augusta Housing Authority; and The NorthSouth Cos. It would have been financed primarily with low-income housing tax credits and a state loan. The developers needed the city's resolution of support to enhance their chances of receiving the loan and tax credits.

The land, about 23 acres, is owned by the Augusta Housing Authority.

The project, which would have included 30 percent low-income housing, was strongly opposed by residents of Breeze Hill, Breeze Hill Estates and The Hamptons subdivisions and the Richmond County Neighborhood Alliance. The residents organized, hired a lawyer and made their opposition known in no uncertain terms. They said the low-income housing would devalue their homes.

Mr. Gunter said he didn't know what his next step would be. He realizes the homeowners didn't want the project next to them, even though it would be a $40 million investment and a very good development.

"It doesn't hurt me," he said. "It hurts the community."

In voting 6-2, with one abstention, not to issue a resolution of support for the project, Augusta commissioners also agreed to encourage the Augusta Housing Authority to look at vacant lots off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard as possible sites.

But Housing Authority Executive Director Jacob Oglesby said Wednesday he would be very surprised if the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would approve such sites.

"You're isolating the families in very impoverished areas," he said. "In areas like that, it would be hard to attract market-rate families who have other options available to them."

Low-income families don't have those options, he said.

"So if you want to truly have a mixed-income development, you have to put it in areas that attract market rate," he said.

Twenty percent of the units in the development would have been market rate. The rest would have been for moderate incomes.