The developer of a proposed mixed-income subdivision in Edgartown attempted last week to withdraw its application to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, in a bid for better odds from the town planning board.

With a tie vote Thursday, the commission declined by default the request from Katama Meadows to restart the review process for a development of regional impact (DRI).

Hours before a public hearing on the 54-acre development was set to resume, Katama Meadows attorney Rob Moriarty filed for the withdrawal, citing this month’s Edgartown election that left only four planning board members eligible to rule on the project.

“I’m sorry about this. We were prepared to go today,” Mr. Moriarty told commissioners that night.

Mr. Moriarty said Katama Meadows also was withdrawing its application to the Edgartown planning board, which has changed membership since it referred the project to the MVC earlier this year.

Newly elected member Taylor Pierce, who unseated Michael Shalett in the April 10 election, is not eligible to take part in deliberations on Katama Meadows’s original application because he was not on the planning board when they began.

While some towns allow board members to gain or regain eligibility by watching recordings of the meetings they missed, Mr. Moriarty said Edgartown does not.

First the Katama Meadows plan needs to clear the MVC — only after that would the plan return to the planning board for review at the town level.

With 36 low-income rental apartments, 12 deed-restricted condominiums and 26 market-rate building lots for single-family homes, Katama Meadows reprises an earlier subdivision proposal called Meeting House Way that the commission denied in 2020.

The developers subsequently sued the MVC and lost in superior court; an appeal is currently on hold while Katama Meadows makes its way through a new DRI process.

The new project has already drawn criticism from environmental groups concerned about potential impacts in the Edgartown Great Pond watershed.

“Given the importance of this project to the town, I think it’s important for everybody to have the full five-member panel of the planning board able to vote on this,” Mr. Moriarty told commissioners on Thursday.

Commission rules allow an applicant to withdraw from the DRI process at any time, with a two-year waiting period before returning to the MVC with the same project.

Mr. Moriarty’s request included a waiver for the two-year pause so that his client could restart the process without delay.

“They’re so far along on this,” he said, adding that the plan has been updated to address some of the concerns commissioners raised during last month’s public hearing.

“We’ve modified it substantially. Right now, there are no single-family lots [sold] until there’s EOHLC funding” Mr. Moriarty said, referring to financial aid from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

Commissioners in March had criticized the previous plan to sell the market-rate lots before beginning the low-income housing.

On Thursday, the commission was divided over Mr. Moriarty’s proposal to withdraw and restart with a new DRI referral from Edgartown.

“All five planning members should have a say in this,” commissioner Brian Smith said. “That’s kind of democracy.”

Other commissioners favored a hands-off approach.

“It was a duly elected planning board that made the referral, and we can’t go back and revisit . . . every time there’s a change in the membership,” commissioner Kate Putnam said.

The vote deadlocked at 8-8, and the hearing was continued to May 8.

In other business Thursday, a public hearing on the proposed Edgartown Gardens subdivision, which began early last month, was continued to May 22, and commissioners voted to allow the demolition of a cottage on Massasoit avenue in Vineyard Haven.

During public testimony on the demolition, experts were divided on the historic value of the five-bedroom structure, which was moved to West Chop from Lambert’s Cove at least than a century ago.

Owners Charles Fitzsimmons and Mari Fitzsimmons, who purchased the property in 2023, intend to replace the cottage with another five-bedroom home, according to the application.