The day before the moratorium vote, however, TCR submitted a new tax waiver application that it believes meets Saltzman's request. The new request calls for a seven-year property tax waiver in exchange for 10% of the units--including eight two-bedroom units--being made affordable to people making less than 80% of median income.

John Warner, a senior manager with the city's housing department, tells GlobeSt.com that the council now has 180 days to act on the application, though he expects the council will get to it long before the deadline. After a pre-application meeting, Warner says his department will comment on the financial necessity of the request, which will then be reviewed by the planning commission before heading to the council for a final vote.

Warner says TCR may well have simply switched the South Waterfront apartment tower to a condominium development if it hadn't already made that switch at the Third and Oak site. Back in February, when TCR and the city began working on the development agreement for Third and Oak, the goal was to balance what was mostly low-income housing in the area with the first new high-rise apartment project outside the city's burgeoning former warehouse district now known as the Pearl District.

Eventually, however, the PDC couldn't afford the subsidy that would have been necessary to make the project pencil, so everyone agreed to do the condominium tower instead. TCR isn't simply doing the same with its would-be South Waterfront project because TCR "doesn't think it's advisable to pursue development of two condo towers at the same time in the same market," says Warner, adding that TCR also would have had to have round up a new slate of investors. TCR senior managing director Robert Hinnen could not for comment.