Plans for the creation of a three-storey, 80-room hotel across from the city's airport are dead.

In a statement during Monday night's council meeting, Mayor Ernie Bourassa said the city will no longer have to forward an Official Community Plan (OCP) amendment request to Community Services Minister Glenn Hart because the hotel's proponent is no longer interested in building the proposed hotel.

'We've been advised by the proponent that he won't go further with the development,' Bourassa told council.

Any attempt to amend the OCP must be met with ministerial approval.

Earlier this year, local businessman Gordon Clark approached council with a request to amend the OCP to allow for the building of a hotel across the Alaska Highway from Whitehorse International Airport.

In his arguments to council, Clark said the city required a hotel across from the airport because it was a service that people had come to expect in tourism destinations.

Clark could not be reached for comment about his reasons for pulling the request.

In an interview this morning, Bourassa said he understood that the application for an OCP amendment was withdrawn after a hotel feasibility study done for Clark showed the hotel is not a good idea.

'From what we understand, his feasibility study showed that the cost of building the hotel was higher than he first anticipated,' he said.

When the matter came before council last week, Coun. Dave Stockdale told council it should proceed with caution in amending the OCP and allowing large-scale development on the highway.

'We're talking about amending the OCP,' an adamant Stockdale told council.

Stockdale is one of two councillors who voted against amending the OCP to allow for a highway hotel.

In what he described as a rare occurrence, Coun. Doug Graham said he agreed with Stockdale 100 per cent.

Graham said he felt amending the OCP to allow for a highway hotel would open the door for future commercial development on the Alaska Highway.

Bourassa was in favour of the development. He said development restrictions in the OCP were intended to prevent big box stores from being located on the highway and that council was not in the business of regulating business.