Our diamond-encrusted mayor giggles with giddy delight while accepting donations from each entity connected with the Lancaster Lofts project.

I seldom attend Board of Zoning Appeals meetings, but received a report from a friend who was there on Tuesday evening.

Up for a zoning variance was Progressive Land Development's "microloft project" at the former site of Tommy Lancaster's and Market Boy (northwest corner of Vincennes and Market).

55 one bedroom units ranging from 292sqf to 644sqf, and a whopping single retail unit that is 1300 sqf. Micro units to rent for planned $525 and the large units $825. Observe that 12x23 is smaller than a pull-behind camper.

Dude: that's almost as tiny as David Duggins' world view ... but I digress.

However this variance for the benefit of Progressive Land Development was not sought by the company itself, whose principal is a documented Gahan re-enthronement campaign donor.

Rather, Progressive's docket was handled by redevelopment director Josh Staten on behalf of Anchor City. Seems the municipality still owns the properties it purchased from the likes of Vinod Gupta and environmentally remediated.

Apparently someone asked Staten to enumerate the city's previous accumulated subsidies and investments in the project, but he replied that he didn't have those numbers. Obviously since the properties have yet to be sold to Progressive, we also don't know the sale price, either.

It also was revealed ...

 ... that HWC is the engineering firm of record and AXIS the architects. Both these firms are from Indianapolis, and yes Virginia, they've been pouring money into Gahan's pockets.

To conclude: The city's redevelopment department has picked a winner, and is running interference; the redevelopment director cannot cite relevant details at a variance hearing; and Gahan campaign donors are involved every step of the way, with ripened plums of the usual no-bid contracts awaiting them.

Nothing about this strikes me as transparent, and if I were to ask Democratic party functionaries to explain, the response is near certain: Yes, it's slimy but it's also standard operating procedure, and no one cares about the details as long as we keep moooooving forward; besides, the Republicans are worse.

This, then, is the extent of our degradation.

#FireGahan2019

Nice building in Providence RI. What's it have to do with Market & Vincennes?

Grassroots redevelopers buy "the worst house on the worst block." How's a self-respecting mayor to wet his beak on THAT?

Progressive Land Development proposes to reinvent the wheel at Lancaster Lofts as Deaf Gahan says wait, is that check in the mail yet?

Lancaster-themed "Micro Lofts" soon will inhabit Duggins' anchor wasteland at the corner of Market and Vincennes.

BZA tables winery production request, so the latest news about River City Winery's future isn't much clearer than the last update.

At this point, seemingly nothing about River City Winery's future seems clear. The last update came in late February.

River City Winery: "We are exploring the relocation of our entire operation to another part of Southern Indiana."

Beats me. As for winemaking in a pole barn off Old Vincennes Road: NIMBY, at least so far.

New Albany BZA tables request for River City Winery production site, by Brooke McAfee (Tom May Content Multiplier)

NEW ALBANY—The future of River City Winery remains up in the air after a Tuesday zoning appeals meeting.

The New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals voted 3-0 to table a motion on a land use variance regarding River City Winery proprietor Gary Humphrey's request to use his home at 1800 Old Vincennes Road in New Albany for wine production. Board members Marcia Booker and Steven Schmelz were absent from the meeting.

The River City Winery location on 321 Pearl Street in New Albany has been closed for months, and Humphrey is going through possible liquidation of the property with his ex-wife, he said. If the liquidation occurs, he would like to acquire a farm winery license for Old Vincennes Road and maintain the winery's tasting room in Franklin.

He also grows grapes at a vineyard in Washington County. However, if he loses the Pearl Street facility, he will not have enough space for wine production, so he wants to use the Old Vincennes Road property until he finds another location.

"If [liquidation] happens, River City winery will not have a place to go," he said. "This plan is a backup plan."

Humphrey is also looking at three other locations in Jeffersonville, Seymour and Evansville for additional tasting rooms, he said. If approved, the land use variance for the Old Vincennes Road property would be temporary, and it would need to last about three years.

While he is considering presenting private events and tours, there are no plans to create a tasting room or restaurant at his property on Old Vincennes Road. He hopes to move the wine production to a pole barn and plant additional grapes on the property, where he would be the only operator for the most part, he said.

At the meeting, a number of residents voiced opposition to Humphrey's request to move his wine production into a residential area. Several expressed concerns about agricultural runoff, including the use of pesticides and fungicides for the grapes.

Many discussed safety concerns regarding traffic and speeding on Old Vincennes Road. Susan Johnson Nguyen, who lives near Humphrey's property, said she is concerned about the "integrity of the neighborhood," and she does not want to see any kind of business operation in the area.

Board members cited the absence of two members and the need for additional information as reasons to table Humphrey's request. Board member Daniel Riggs said he would like to have input from New Albany's wastewater department about possible waste issues before making a decision.

Looks like ESNA and HyperCars are closerthanthis, which is why reality is so much more humorous than fiction.

What's a concerned citizen have to do to get back on the neighborhood association mailing list?

Thanks to the Green Mouse for forwarding what my eyes obviously aren't supposed to be viewing.

On Wednesday August 1 at 6:00 PM Hyper Cars Auto Detailing, located at 13th & Spring St, will hosting a special Open House for members of the ESNA. Please come and see the improvements made to the building and property. On August 7th the owner, Christian Betz, will be requesting a special exception at the BZA to sell a limited number of high-end cars at the location and he would like to have support from members of the neighborhood.

Hope to see you there.

Greg Roberts
ESNA President

It appears that ESNA's president-for-life has decided to hop into bed with HyperCars over "luxury" auto sales; given the bed already is occupied by Jeff Gahan, it may be time to upsize.

Have you noticed the default? Just about anyone who become aligned with city hall in any way suddenly feels the need to discourage dialogue and communication, keeping as much activity as possible below the surface.

That ugly word again: Plan Commission to consider "luxury" car sales at HyperCars on 13th and Spring.

When I finally was allowed to attend an ESNA meeting recently and the question of used car sales at HyperCars was raised, the association's Greg Roberts said there'd be none.

Yesterday I asked Greg for a clarification, and he offered this revision: it seems the neighborhood elders have been monitoring the situation, and they knew all along that HyperCars someday would seek to park no more than seven cars at a time on the lot for sale, but no one thought the business actually would pursue an exception this quickly, and learned of it only when the Plan Commission mailing arrived.

That's poor communication on several levels.

Whereas I'd previously declined to get involved with this situation, I can feel the dander's upward creep.

Ironically, after the last ESNA meeting Roberts told me it would be okay for my address to once again be added to the mailing list, from which it had been removed after I foolishly assumed a few YEARS back that I could "reply to all" in an effort to facilitate communicating with neighbors -- but NO; this apparently is a violation of East Gregland protocol.

Add another column to the Chronicles of New Gahania: I'm being excluded from a neighborhood association that barely exists because dialogue is a threat to "proper" communication.

Shrug. If you're a 3rd district voter, hasn't eight years of this been enough?

It's déjà vu all over again as the NAHA and New Hope ask the BZA for variances to build housing units in three locations near West Street.

The Board of Zoning Appeals meets this Tuesday evening (May 1), and three items on the BZA agenda, each seeking a variance, bear a striking similarity to each other.

The past few days have been hectic, and I haven't had time to research this thoroughly (paging my friend Mike), so I'm going to wing it.

The fact that these 30 duplexes and five single-family dwellings represent a marriage of the New Albany Housing Authority and New Hope suggests they're leveraging Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), as explained in this article.

The LIHTC program does not provide housing subsidies. Instead, the program provides tax incentives, written into the Internal Revenue Code, to encourage developers to create affordable housing. These tax credits are provided to each State based on population and are distributed to the State’s designated tax credit allocating agency. In turn, these agencies distribute the tax credits based on the State’s affordable housing needs with broad outlines of program requirements from the federal government. This is done through the Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) process.

And, given the lengthy bureaucratic process involved, I'm also going to guess that these unusual non-demolition projects fell into David Duggins' lap (dance) courtesy of former NAHA director Bob Lane, who took me on a tour one day a few years ago and pointed out these pieces of property as future building sites.

In short, the colonizing forces would seem to be following the pre-existing plan put together by the deposed Lane. Consequently, I'm issuing a Gahan Personality Cult Alert (GPCA), and you should be on the lookout for the mayor and his vicious sycophantic lickspittles taking credit for someone else's work.

Because they can, and will. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll make the necessary corrections.

TO: New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals
FROM: Scott Wood, Director
SUBJECT: Regular Meeting, Tuesday, May 1st, 2018
DATE: April 26th, 2018

TENTATIVE AGENDA

The regular meeting of the New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals will be held on Tuesday, May 1st, 2018 at 7:00 p.m., in the Assembly Room (Room 331) City-County Building, New Albany, Indiana, at which time a Public Hearing will be held to consider the following petitions ...

We're only concerned with the last three public hearings. I've inserted satellite photos after each docket.

Docket B-20-18: The New Albany Housing Authority, by David Duggins, and New Hope Development Services Inc., by James Bosley requests a Land Use Variance to permit 18 duplexes (36 units) and two single-family dwellings that will not meet development standards in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 801 through 826 Linden Meadows Court and 750, 752, 754, 756, 758, 761, 763, and 765 Linden Street.

Docket B-21-18: The New Albany Housing Authority, by David Duggins, and New Hope Development Services Inc., by James Bosley requests a Land Use Variance to permit nine duplexes and that will not meet development standards in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 66 Valley View Court.

Docket B-22-18: The New Albany Housing Authority, by David Duggins, and New Hope Development Services Inc., by James Bosley requests a Land Use Variance to permit three duplexes and three single-family dwellings that will not meet development standards in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 320, 323, 329, 333, 335, 342, and 346 Ealy Street.

Got something to say about it? Here's how you can be heard.

Written suggestions and/or objections to said dockets may be filed with the New Albany City Board of Zoning Appeals, Room 329, City-County building, New Albany, Indiana, on or before the date of said meeting. Written objections to the proposal that are filed with the Secretary of the Commission before the hearing shall be considered. Interested persons desiring to present oral comments on the proposal shall be given the opportunity to be heard at the above-mentioned time and place.

Said Public Hearing may be continued from time to time as may be found necessary by the BZA. Any person that may require reasonable accommodation to attend the meeting or to comment upon the above-listed docket may make their wishes known in writing, or by contacting the Commission at 1(812) 948-5333 (Voice) Indiana Statewide Relay 1-800-743-3333 (Hearing Impaired).

Thanks to Padgett, a halfway house will front a two-way street. When it comes to social justice, ya gotta start SOMEWHERE.

If it weren't for a citywide irony so pervasive that it flies at 30,000 feet, over the heads of everyone involved, then those stopped clocks registering the right time twice each day wouldn't be so enduringly entertaining.

Padgett family offers to help start New Albany halfway house; 1514 E. Spring St. home will be purchased if the city approves, by Danielle Grady (Hanson Obliviousness Modulator)

NEW ALBANY — Thanks to a charitable business family, plans to build a halfway house for women in New Albany are back on.

Pending city approval, the family that owns Padgett, Inc., will purchase 1514 E. Spring St. to transform into Nicole’s Place, a home for women recovering from addiction.

But let's not be churlish. This stands to be a good use for the space, and kudos to Padgett for its social consciousness. Perhaps in addition to "God working behind the scenes" (as a predictably trite quote in the article suggests), either He or Padgett finally will get behind the house, a part of the building never entirely completed during its previous remodeling roughly 10 years ago (photos from the summer of 2016).

As an aside, am I the only one who believes that the renowned law firm of Greg & Greg will bring the East Spring Street Neighborhood Association to bear against such a use for this house? 

Lisa Livingston is the local woman behind Nicole’s Place. A graduate of a similar program in Jeffersonville, Livingston originally planned to open Nicole’s Place at 2106 E. Elm St. in New Albany, but the city plan commission voted to deny her the special exception she needed to start it.

The plan commission worried that Elm Street was too residential for Nicole’s Place.

Livingston needs another special exception to open Nicole’s Place on Spring Street, but the neighborhood contains a mix of residences and businesses.

She plans to bring her proposal for Nicole’s Place to the plan commission’s March meeting. It will need to be approved by both the plan commission and, later, the board of zoning appeals.

Livingston was disappointed by the plan commission’s original decision to deny her a special exception, but was determined to find another place.

Still, she wasn’t expecting it when Jimmy Padgett, the vice president of Padgett, Inc., contacted her and asked for a meeting.

The Padgett’s are concerned about the drug epidemic in the United States, according to a release from Padgett, Inc.

“The Padgett family feels strongly that people who are trying to fix their problems should be assisted in every way possible,” said Jimmy in a statement. “Addiction is a disease. The people with this disease need compassion, the same as people with any debilitating disease. They cannot be held responsible for their disease but they must be held responsible for their sobriety. It is incumbent upon everyone to help people who are providing solutions that can transition those seeking sobriety back to being productive citizens, and that is the mission of Nicole’s [Place].”

The Padgett family will purchase the property on Spring Street for Livingston after the planning and zoning department approves her plans. They’ll lease it to Nicole’s Place with the goal of the halfway house purchasing the home from the Padgett’s within 18 months with grant dollars and other donations. The Padgett’s will also provide a donation to Nicole’s Place.

Jimmy met with Livingston and the director of Nicole’s Place before deciding to help. He wanted to make sure Livingston had a good plan, she said.

Nicole’s Place will be based off of the Bliss House in Jeffersonville, where Livingston used to live.

Residents at the Bliss House must call and ask for a spot for 30 consecutive days before being accepted into the program. They must also be clean and sober 30 days prior to their placement there, and after placement, must pay $100 a week in rent for their recovery courses, meals and access to the Internet and other services.

The Bliss House also has a zero tolerance drug use police and a no male-contact rule.

Nicole’s Place already has a board of directors, which includes people who have worked with the Bliss House in the past, one of whom was a former director.

There will be parking lot behind Nicole’s Place and residents will always be supervised by staff while on the property.

The Padgett Inc. release said that the Padgett family is aware that many people are opposed to places like Nicole’s Place because they don’t want people with drug problems living near them.

“However, the reality is we are surrounded by people with drug problems everywhere: at the grocery store, work, social events and walking or driving down the street,” the release said.

Livingston said she’s overwhelmed by Jimmy’s contribution to Nicole’s Place.

“I had heard about people like him, but I’ve never met any,” she said.

Livingston said that Greg Henderzahs, the executive director for the Center of Lay Ministries, which runs Bliss House, expressed surprise at the Padgett’s help with Nicole’s Place.

“[Henderzahs] said things like this just don’t happen,” Livingston said. “This is definitely God working behind the scenes.”

Jimmy wasn’t the only person that reached out to Livingston after the News and Tribune published two articles about Nicole’s Place in November.

Livingston thinks that’s because the motives of those behind Nicole’s Place are pure.

“We aren’t going for financial gain,” she said. “It’s all about helping. And Floyd County is in dire need.”

Livingston said she hopes to start moving women into Nicole’s Place by April if the halfway house is approved by New Albany in March. About six women would live in Nicole’s Place at first, but the Spring Street house could potentially hold 25.

At Summit Springs work session tonight, council will get an itsy bitsy glimpse into City Hall's smoke-filled secret planning chamber.

6:30 p.m., tonight, council chamber. Regular meeting at 7. Soothing gin available at The Exchange, pre-game.

Just plain citizen Aaron Hellems continues to perform a valuable public service by attempting to make transparent the backroom dealings that led to this project's surprise re-appearance, which for most people became evident only when the hillside was denuded of trees earlier this spring.

Shortly thereafter, City Hall triumphantly announced its participation in yet another private developer enrichment project, Summit Springs (NOW WITH HOTEL!!!), and therein lies the biggest question of all, at least for me.

We, the city, spent in excess of two years -- more like three -- battling these developers in court over issues pertaining to our ability as a municipal entity to establish rules about developments like Summit Springs.

We, the city, moved the court case to Scott County, far from prying eyes. The court case was settled (circumstances as yet unknown -- that transparency thing again) circa October of 2015, and mere months later, down came the trees, and up went the plaque proclaiming we, the city's tremendous achievement in public/private partnering with the developers to snarl State Street traffic for generations to come -- not to mention stormwater system overloads and a host of other questions not subject to public review or participation.

Here's what inquiring minds want to know:

Given the time it  takes to engrave plaques and overhaul multi-million dollar project plans, was one arm of City Hall fighting Summit Springs even as another arm was fluffing it?

The answer should be obvious. Waiting for Jeff Gahan to answer this question honestly? Don't, because he cannot and will not. He won't come to tonight's meeting. However, at the ribbon cutting, he'll be standing center stage, fundraising for That State Senate Campaign in 2018.

Summit Springs work session coming soon, by Jerod Clapp (Utica Solidarity Gazette)

NEW ALBANY — Getting some answers on the process and what's coming forward for the Summit Springs development off State Street is the aim of a city council work session Monday night.

Since the clear cutting of trees behind home on Fawcett Hill Road, which backs up to the proposed development, Aaron Hellems has raised his issues with the city in terms of why those trees were cut down, how it was pushed through by a single city official and looking for assurances that the city will honor laws regarding PUDDs in the future.

He spoke at the last city council meeting on May 19 about the issues. However, he said he's not heard from anyone involved in the development since.

"Unfortunately, nobody from the city has reached out to discuss this," Hellems said. "Likewise, the developers haven't tried to contact us, either. [The city council] said when you come back, you need to know what you want. It's not so much about me as it is the neighborhood."

He said part of the issue is how the clear cutting was approved. He said those sorts of decisions require second approval by local governing agencies under the law, but that didn't happen with those trees. Scott Wood, director of the city plan commission, made that decision in April. He said there was a deadline to meet to cut the trees down before Indiana Bats began roosting in them, which would have delayed the project for about another year.

The heroic Statue of Disdain, coming soon to a hillside near us.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

VIDEO: Summit Springs development and roadway proposals, Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission, Tuesday 12 April 2016.

FLASKBACK: What I wrote on the occasion of Summit Springs ... nine years ago.

City Hall approves heroic "Statue of Disdain" branding symbol for Summit Springs.

FLASKBACK: What I wrote on the occasion of Summit Springs ... nine years ago.

From council coverage on February 5, 2007 ... a little over 9 years ago, when the first iteration of the Summit Springs property development bubbled to the surface. Are we making "progress' yet?

---

The more rope he is provided, the bigger Larry’s slippery noose grows.

Z-07-01
Ordinance Amending the Code of Ordinances New Albany, Indiana, Title XV, Chapter 156 (Docket P-12-06: Pat & Pam Kelly – Summit Springs Development)
Crump 1

Discussion of this, the latest in a series of divisive green field development projects, is my not-so-dark-horse choice to prompt a shouting match, either between citizens, council members, or both.

In essence, local zoning authorities use existing sets of criteria to rate such projects, which pass to the council for final approval, and are considered by the council using entirely different sets of criteria (read: political and electoral). The predictable result is a wide divergence of philosophical intent, and a striking absence of contextual continuity from one debate to the next.

With open space at an ever-increasing premium within the city limits of New Albany, but numerous adjacent tracts available for redevelopment and the type of adaptive reuse that we advocate here on a weekly basis, it continues to be frustrating that the square-pegged development logic of the “limitless” exurb so often is forcibly jammed into what are urban holes of decidedly different shape and ideal usage.

Unfortunately, a big part of the problem is the community’s inability – perhaps its unwillingness – to unify for the pursuit and maintenance of common development goals. To reframe our zoning standards according to a futuristic perspective, and to step up enforcement of standards already determined, is to set goals that are consistent with a principled recognition of changing circumstances, and to plan how these bars can be cleared for overall betterment.

As with so many other issues, I’m entirely unsure how we get past the enmity of generations and eliminate the personal animus that tends to improperly provide the backdrop to most of the council’s zoning decisions. It is clear that a working compromise between certain development mentalities structured to transform corn fields into asphalt, and those addressing the city’s pressing need to meet the demands of a far different – not better, not worse, just different – target market for an urban experience downtown, must be achieved … and soon.

Like so many previous proposals that have come before the council for consideration, it is likely that the Summit Springs project will be subject to the spasmodic paradigms of the body’s ward-heeling faction, and that it will be approved or rejected in the lamentable absence of a genuine community debate over developmental standards. Where the coin will drop is anyone’s guess, as it always is with this group.

VIDEO: Summit Springs development and roadway proposals, Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission, Tuesday 12 April 2016.

The topic is Summit Springs, a huge hilltop property development off State Street, which apparently began forward motion (probably downhill) only after the resolution of a two-year-long lawsuit undertaken by the property owners against the city, which was resolved last October.

As no one outside the down-low bunker knows what the resolution of the lawsuit stipulated, it's anyone's guess, although this snippet of the development's enabling city council ordinance way back in 2008 (Z-01-18, I believe) contains a very important nugget.

Needless to say, no such secondary review has occurred, but a hillside has been stripped clean and the city has agreed to TIF a cliff-clinging road. The rest, as was repeated so often today, is merely the detail of responsible, civic due diligence by the very same design and engineering suspects as always.

The royal houses of Europe learned these lessons the hard way. From the newspapers:

New details revealed in disputed N.A. project, by Lexy Gross (C-J)

Favorable vote moves New Albany hotel development forward; Board gives OK to road extension work, by Chris Morris (Clark Chronicle)

---

The following four videos are from the Redevelopment Commission meeting of Tuesday, April 12. I'm the first to admit that I'm new at iPhone videos, but since the most recent RC minutes are several months old, I thought something is better than nothing. I exhausted available storage space just as former councilman John Gonder brilliantly spoke, and also missed the unanimous commission vote in favor of the road.

Of course, no road, no project. Many approvals are ahead, and maybe the property owners will surprise us and actually follow the letter of the eight-year-old law.

Speakers in these videos include commission members and representatives of the development company hired by property owners Patrick and Pam Kelley. The last of these videos is Aaron Hellems, who spoke against the project. There'll be more to say about this, but for now ... it's something.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

Green Mouse Q and A, Episode 2: Let the city know how you feel about the Summit Springs environmental clustermuck.

On Tuesday afternoon, Jeff Gahan's cloak-and-dagger Redevelopment Backscratching Commission will consider the future of Summit Springs, a bizarre hilltop commercial development off State Street that has been turned down more often than I was during prom season back in '77.

And yet following the late 2015 resolution of a lawsuit against the city, the controversial project has returned to life and is being warmly embraced by Team Gahan, which has resolved to TIF-Gift this for-profit private development monstrosity with an access road somehow tacked to the hillside, requiring a feat of engineering last witnessed when we spent $3 million on Bob Caesar's Silver Hills driveway.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

As noted yesterday, the Green Mouse has found a disgruntled informant close to the top. As information comes in, it will be published here.

---

What can be done to stop this environmental disaster of Gahan-ic proportions?

Up on my floor, we call Summit Springs “Schisty Springs.” As for what can be done to stop it, it's the same old story. You have to register your viewpoint.

You can inundate city government with calls expressing your dissatisfaction with this planned development and the secretive means it has been thrust upon us. 

The main number for the city building is 812-948-5333. Ask to speak to the mayor’s office, the City Plan Commission, and Redevelopment. You are also strongly urged to contact your district city council person and each at-large member. If you are feeling particularly ornery and feisty, express your discontent and insist on satisfactory answers to your questions.

While you’re at it, email them as well so there’s a paper trail. 10, 15, or 20 calls in a day is enough to get anyone’s attention. This is not just about being a nuisance … it’s about holding our public officials accountable and making sure they follow the law.

However, good luck in trying to reach these city officials. Judging from the past, I fear they may already be in hiding trying to avoid the fallout of this latest debacle.

Green Mouse Q and A: How the Summit Springs hilltop clustermuck got to this point.

On Tuesday, Jeff Gahan's handpicked Redevelopment Rubber Stamp Commission will consider the future of Summit Springs, a hilltop commercial development off State Street. The city's TIF Gift to this latest monstrosity is to be road tacked to the hillside.

Behold the aesthetic monstrosity of Summit Springs, coming soon to our low-density State Street corridor.

Cartoon: "A Night on Bald Mountain" (State Street remix) will be followed by a free kazoo concert in Bicentennial Park.

Them bats in Pinocchio Rosenbarger's belfry: BOW talks Greenway, and a night on Bald Mountain.

The Green Mouse has found a disgruntled informant close to the top. As information comes in, it will be published here.

---

Where did the trees go?

A developer has decided to place a hotel and other businesses on top of that steep hill, and apparently, the trees were in the way.

When did this get approved?

It didn’t. Well…kinda.

It’s a little confusing unless you are a Krafty lawyer. The property owners have been trying to develop that hill since 2003. Most recently, in 2012, the proposed plan failed to gain support from City Council. However, the night City Council was to vote on it, the property owners withdrew the plan.

A couple months later, the property owners returned with the intention of reviving a plan from 2008. This particular plan had received primary approval from the Plan Commission and approval from City Council in 2008. However, because the property owners did not obtain secondary approval from the Plan Commission within 18 months as stated in city ordinance, the 2008 plan was no longer valid.

Now, the property owners must have known this. Otherwise, why would they go through the trouble and cost of getting another plan approved?

Since the property owners couldn’t get the needed votes from the 2012 City Council, they needed to devise a scheme to bypass City Council … enter the 2008 plan. They took the 2008 plan before the Board of Zoning Appeals but the Board saw through the scheme despite being threatened with a lawsuit. The property owners held true to their promise and sued the City of New Albany and the Board of Zoning Appeals.

This is where the story becomes unclear.

The city’s attorney, Stan Robison, requested a change of venue which ultimately moved the proceedings to Scott County. The local reporter (Daniel Suddeath) who had been covering the proposed development left the News and Tribune. Any and all coverage of this news story was non-existent during this time until now, when the hill has been stripped bare and the property owners want to build a road.

Whatever happened in the courtroom was clearly in the property owners’ favor. So, when did this plan gain approval? In 2008, by the city’s then Plan Commission and City Council, with the assistance of a judge at some point in the last two years. All of this was done without the property owner ever filing and getting approval for a secondary plan that would provide the details of the proposed development, which breaks city ordinance. So, it was not approved using the process set forth by the city.

How wonderful it is to be above the law. I wonder what else has been done without proper approval ... wait, don't ask me to answer THAT one.

In which we reveal EXACTLY how to evade those pesky bureaucratic parking requirements.

Something noteworthy happened at the January meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals.

PUBLIC HEARING: Docket B-01-16: James and Tabitha Sprigler request a Land Use Variance to permit commercial office space, yoga studio and art gallery that will not meet development standards in the R-2, Urban Residential district, at 1931 Spring Street.

Decades ago, the building at 1931 East Spring Street housed the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, and when it closed, the zoning became residential. The Spriglers have completely renovated the building and sought a variance for commercial use.

The docket is self-explanatory, though it helps to know that the art gallery was intended specifically as an "uptown" location to be used by the Arts Council as a second, smaller site for exhibitions and classes.

The BZA approved use as a yoga studio and office, but refused use as an art gallery.

Over parking concerns.

Readers with long memories will recall that Jeff Speck's Downtown Street Network Proposal, which currently is being held captive in a remote and primly bolted tower of Jeff & Warren's Magical Kingdom, calls for a profusion of on-street parking along this high-speed stretch of the world's longest interstate entrance ramp.

In the presumably safe assumption that New Gahanian administration insiders are the only human being with any knowledge of City Hall's position v.v. Speck, the applicants mentioned these future parking spaces, only to be reminded by Scott Wood that street grid reforms will or will not occur at the whim of the King, and consequently, we cannot place faith in them -- only in documents not updated since Guns 'n' Roses actually mattered.

As for the existence of parking spaces behind the building and along nearby Jay and Thomas streets, and the possibility of working with nearby commercial lots to park cars during Arts Council events, the answer was the same.

Parking must belong to the building itself, and other spots cannot be considered.

So, even though the current Arts Council building on the corner of Market and 9th utilizes on-street parking alone, the proposed annex on Spring absolutely could not.

Hmm. You'd think it would be just as easy to entirely close Spring Street for special arts events as it is to entirely close Market Street for special arts events ... but we wouldn't want to compel logical thought from the Bored of Works, would we? That's because we've learned our lesson: New Gahanian projects pertaining to arts almost have a tendency to produce brain farts amid the ruling elite.

NAC believes there is one course the applicants might have pursued to alleviate concerns over parking, and to obtain a "free" pass on parking requirements.

Introducing the Arts Council River Run Water Park on Spring.

Duggins: Indy developer has "vested interest" in our community, and millennials prefer biking alongside Padgett cranes.

There's something surreal about the conversations taking place as to the preferences of the $60,000 per year millennials who'll be playing bocce ball at the Flaherty and Collins development, which I believe is slated to be called Gahan "Business of Residency" Manor.

That's because the words "business of residency" must be chanted as economic development mantras just as often as "trickle down" and "ripple effect," so that the turbine powered by George Orwell spinning in his grave continues to power our street non-sweepers.

But you see, these millennials won't need as many parking spaces because millennials like to bicycle and walk, and they're not auto-centric like their parents, and the former Coyle site is located in a "pedestrian friendly" area.

With almost no crosswalks, without any efforts made to promote a culture of walkability, because at a previous meeting David Duggins rushed to reassure the crowd that these walkers and bikers would be perfectly content with unaltered, adjacent, two fast lanes comprising one-way arterial streets, as built to interstate specifications, and thus discouraging walking and biking.

You see, THESE millennials will be different, and enjoy 18-wheelers thundering past as they ride to ... to ... where again are they riding in a city almost entirely without bike lanes, and no coherent plans to add ones that might actually connect to each other?

The comparatively fewer cars parked there won't be a problem unless they are, at which point the developer will have to deal with it ... perhaps by buying adjacent homes with further TIF One Card bonds to create more stormwater-friendly impermeable surface?

Even better ...

AT&T, which has a location across from the development, donated a 24-space lot to the city to be utilizes specifically for the development.

Yes!

More prime infill building space goes toward surface parking, contributing to stormwater issues, which millennials can reach by walking across a one-way arterial street with bike lanes that go nowhere and connect to nothing, where crosswalks are almost unheard of, and which -- thus far in the mayor's down-low stealth campaign to convince selected private questioners that he understands this so well that nothing can be done to change it for two or more years -- nothing has been done to change it now, and never will, in two or twenty years.

Do any of these people really believe a single word he's saying?

I understand Duggins, Gahan, Flaherty, Collins, Rosenbarger and Gibson spouting outlandish propaganda. I suppose now, at long last, I must finally concede that Scott Wood is mortally afflicted with the gibberish contagion, too.

This makes me very sad.

Doctor, my broom, please.

New Albany apartments receive zoning approval, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — The public funding has been OK'd, a substantial tax credit pledged, and on Tuesday, the developer seeking to construct a $26 million apartment and retail complex in downtown New Albany garnered zoning approval from the city.

Flaherty and Collins received unanimous approval from the New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals to construct a 191-unit apartment development on the former Coyle auto property from 501 to 515 E. Spring St.

A variance was required for the project in part because the number of parking spaces planned doesn't meet the city's standard for apartments of similar size.

BZA to rule on B & B.

The New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7th, and on the agenda there is this item.

Docket B-20-15: Melissa Meier requests a Land Use Variance to permit a bed and breakfast in the R-3, Multi-Family (medium density) district, at 600 East Main Street.

It's a familiar address.

Wait -- how'd THAT get in there? Here's the actual view.

With the previous owner having moved, this would appear to indicate new possibilities for guests at the former Admiral Bickell Inn, and that's something to applaud. Best of luck to the new owner.

And that other house?

I don't know. Maybe it's the smoking lounge.

Update: Thumbs up for the Wrecker Brewing variance at 1419 E. Market Street.

I wasn't able to attend last evening's Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. I got a haircut instead. But I asked the News and Tribune's Daniel Suddeath for a report, and he says that Wrecker Brewing was approved for a production brewing facility, though not a bar.

That tells us a little more. Betcha they'll be brewing IPA. Here's an update on Donum Dei Brewery.

Wrecker Brewing is the variance seeker at 1419 E. Market Street in New Albany.

A brewery at 1419 E. Market Street in New Albany?

A brewery at 1419 E. Market Street in New Albany?

It appears that someone else wants to start a brewery behind my back -- wait, I mean in my backyard.

It's here, at 1419 E. Market St., which lies closer to my residence than Bank Street Brewhouse.

I really hate those one-way street signs. In the aerial view, Spring Street is on the upper left, and Vincennes to the right.

As far as I know, the Donum Dei Brewery slated for retail space near the El Nopal on Grant Line Road (near NABC's Pizzeria & Public House) still is moving forward, and as yet, I've heard nothing more about the Wrecker Brewing Company.

Anyone? I'll attend the Board of Zoning Appeals on Wednesday and see if more can be learned.

Neither steroids nor proverbs for the Board of Zoning Appeals.

I've been wondering if the News and 'Bune's renewed emphasis on religious hokum, as with columnist Tom May recently increased appearances in print, reflects the otherwise silent publisher's Bible verse-infused Twitter feed.

Perhaps these twin irrelevancies are purely coincidental.

Meanwhile, the Courier-Journal's Grace Schneider somehow manages to avoid sports references as she provides dispassionate, factual coverage of the New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals, including new use for the Pepin House on Main Street and board member Bledsoe's fear of proliferating child care services, which are not unlike meth labs, at least when too many appear on one's own private one-way street, which utterly lacks the golf course necessary to provide proper instruction to repressed urban children.

Yes, and perennial ReDestruction lawyer Krafty John is preparing a lawsuit to defend clients ignorant of the PUD law, but this occurs at every meeting, doesn't it?

Zoning panel OKs B&B on Mansion Row in New Albany; Mansion Row site could host events

... Scott Wood, the plan commission director, told the zoning board that while Main Street has gradually shifted from single-family homes to apartments and a few bed and breakfasts, the upside to Smith’s plan is that a significant historical structure has been preserved ...

The week ahead: Meetings amid festivals on top of appeals.

It's Harvest Homecoming week, with Monday being the only night off during NABC's week-long Fringe Fest, and if I was sane ... or sober ...

But: I'm probably not looking at either of those conditions any time soon, so it looks as though the usual suspects will assemble in the council chamber tomorrow night to endure another round of punishment.

The agenda has been released, and the Tribune looks at two of the biggest items.

McLaughlin: Georgetown needs to pay $450,000

Top dogs to get say on masterplan

However, the most compelling meeting of the week looks to be Tuesday evening's Board of Zoning Appeals session. Too bad that it's Klezmer Night at the Brewhouse.

Decision time for Eastridge request

After three postponements, the New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals will likely vote on a variance request Tuesday for a controversial tire shredding and recycling center along Ind. 111.