WILLISTON (AP) -The chief executive officer of a Fargo development company says the company has canceled plans for up to 108 new apartment units in Williston and is being unfairly blamed for high rent prices there.

"We have undertaken great risk in building needed housing in the area. We understand high prices and rent increases are painful, however we think the wholesale assault on our company is not fair or warranted," CEO Mike Marcil of The Marcil Group, Inc., wrote in a letter to The Williston Herald.

Williston Mayor Ward Koeser said Marcil built two new apartment buildings and raised the rent in a couple of other apartment complexes it bought and renovated.

"They made some substantial increases in rent," Koeser said. "The people involved were concerned that they couldn't pay those rents. So I guess they got involved and made it clear they didn't want Marcils to get any break or any incentive to build more."

The Williston City Commission held a public hearing earlier this week to consider a request by The Marcil Group Inc. and its partner, the Valley Development Group of Valley City, for a tax increment finance district that would help pay for the construction of more new apartments in Williston.

Marcil said public opposition to his company led to him to withdraw his proposal and the company would have no new involvement in the Williston market.

"We are the group trying to address the issue by building more housing. Instead of blaming us, why not ask why no local investors are willing to build apartments in Williston," Marcil wrote in his letter, which also was e-mailed to some city officials

Marcil said his corporation has less than 10 percent of the rental units in Williston and does not control the rental market. A demand for housing is pushing up the prices there, he told The Williston Herald.

Rent will be frozen for up to a year for tenants in 143 existing apartment units in the area as a "gesture of good will," Marcil said. If a tenant moves out, the new tenant will pay the market rate, he said.

Marcil said his group had proposed a second project worth an estimated $10 million and he thought residents would welcome an organization finally willing to invest in the community.

"Instead, we are the villains from Fargo that just comes in there and kicks out old citizens from their houses," he said. "That is HUD related. That is not us. We are building market housing."

Marcil said banks are unwilling to lend for projects in Williston, so his group would have to use its own cash to build. He said the city was easy to deal with but said the company faced an "extraordinary level of hostility" in the community.