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A proposed housing complex in Kerrville for senior and disabled veterans has been dealt a major setback denial by the state of its application for federal tax credits to help fund the $8.2 million project.

It's devastating, Communities for Veterans LLC principal Craig Taylor said Thursday of the 4-2 vote last week by the Department of Housing and Community Affairs board.

He plans to resubmit an application to the agency next year for the 100-unit complex, called Freedom's Path in Kerrville, that is slated for construction on the campus of the Veterans Affairs Department hospital in Kerrville.

Although supported by Kerr County commissioners and Hill Country veterans groups, Taylor won the necessary backing of the Kerrville City Council for the project only two days before the March 1 deadline to apply to the state for tax credits.

He made the deadline, seeking $750,000 in tax credits annually for 10 years for the 49-unit phase one.

But key elements were missing, rendering the application materially deficient and prompting the agency staff to terminate it, said Department of Housing and Community Affairs spokesman Gordon Anderson.

Taylor's appeal of the termination, heard May 10, faced opposition from Granger McDonald, a Kerrville developer who is among those seeking $550,000 in tax credits for an apartment complex in Comfort.

Anderson said Comfort Place and the VA project were the only applicants this spring for tax credits in the multicounty rural region that includes Kerr County.

McDonald also was affiliated with River Vista LP, the preferred contractor for a prior VA plan to build an 80-unit housing complex for homeless veterans in Kerrville.

Citing local opposition to hosting a homeless facility whose tenants potentially would include non-veterans, McDonald withdrew from that project in 2010.

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Tax credits denied for Kerrville VA housing