It wasn't about drainage at all. Rather, an irrational fear of density doomed the West Street Mews.

The single most hilarious aspect of Coffey's resistance is the juxtaposition of these two statements, both coming from the Wizard's mouth.

"I don't think it’s the government’s responsibility to make sure people profit."

"You have to have green space for people. You have to, it’s a healthy [necessity] for people."

Or, while it isn't Coffey's job to make money for a developer -- not receiving some from one in particular might be the root of the problem in this instance -- it's very much his job to decide how much green space is healthy.

Many persons residing in major cities, or even some renting at Break Water, likely have a different view of green space versus density. Maybe it's why they decided to live in a 190-unit apartment complex as opposed to a ranch house in Georgetown.

When I asked my councilman Greg Phipps for his reason voting no, the reply was terse: "Too dense." He mentioned nothing about drainage or green space.

Oddly, Phipps' own mayor just recently unveiled a 20-year comprehensive plan. It's already been used by Jeff Gahan -- the guy who in effect wrote it -- as justification to reduce public housing units.

And yet at roughly 35 separate places in this document, the word "density" is used in a positive fashion to describe the sort of development needed in the epicenter of the city, and near the core.

I was told that the developer of West Street Mews referenced the comprehensive plan at least four times during the city council presentation last Thursday. That's four times more often than Coffey and Pat McLaughlin did in their comments to the News and Tribune's Erin Walden.

Drainage didn't doom the development so much as incomprehension in terms of what has become the weakest and most inconsistent city council in recent memory. In the case of the West Street Mews, Al Knable is right.

“We ask people to look at us, take a risk and invest in New Albany all the time and I think we shut the door on somebody who had the guts to try to make some money with us and help us out."

Drainage concerns doomed proposed New Albany development

Turns down development 5-4

NEW ALBANY — New Albany City Council members are split when it comes to a proposed development at two vacant lots on West Street.

A request to build 26 townhouses on a vacant lot at 1105-1109 West Street was turned down 5-4 during a city council meeting last Thursday. With the request denied, the developer can build a fraction, 12 units, of what was planned under its current R-2 zoning.

Previously:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2017

Befuddlement at the news as strange council bedfellows unite to defeat West Street Mews.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 06, 2017

City Council Monday: All the mews fit to reject?

Befuddlement at the news as strange council bedfellows unite to defeat West Street Mews.

The News and Tribune's Chris Morris recorded the quote as 6th district council representative Scott Blair tried to explain his opposition to a townhouse development off West Street in New Albany.

(Councilman Scott) Blair had other concerns. "There are just too many units for two acres. Seems too congestive for me," Blair said.

Actually, normal usage of the adjective congestive lies in specialized medical applications, like congestive heart failure: "Involving or producing too much blood or other liquid in an organ."

We use congested to describe “clogged,” “overcrowded,” or “overfull,” as when a lifetime of eating fatty fried food leaves one with congested arteries. In like fashion, overpopulated cities and crowded roads are said to be congested.

Bankers. Can't live with 'em ... can't teach 'em the meaning of words like density and infill.

Meanwhile, "mews" might be trite and annoying developer-speak for townhouses in Coffeyville, but it jibes point by point with those same passages about infill and density included in the city's new comprehensive plan -- the one authored by Team Gahan to encourage housing precisely like this, and yet opposed last night by three of four councilman in Gahan's own sad party, plus Blair (huh?) and Dan Coffey himself.

Maybe the project's backers forgot to grease Dear Leader's re-election wheels.

We are reminded of a bedrock truth pertaining to city council politics in New Albany, which won't ever change for so long as Coffey remains a councilman, because the reason why the West End forever languishes is that Coffey himself opposes change in his own environs with clock-like regularity.

The Wizard simply cannot survive in a socio-economic habitat any different from the one he has cultivated (read: kept waaaay down) during more than two decades of underachievement. He can always get the votes he needs from absentee ballots collected at Riverview Tower; not so ironically, a building comprising public housing units slated for refurbishing rather than the guillotine.

Coffey is nothing if not consistent. Blair is nothing if not confused.

By the way, the Horseshoe Foundation non-binding resolution passed unanimously. Morris must have left the meeting before then. Ominously, with Elizabeth Beilman departed, New Albany's about to get it good and hard from Hanson's tone-deaf newspaper in terms of non-coverage -- again.

Council votes down plan for townhouses

PUDD defeated by 5-4 vote

NEW ALBANY — It's back to the drawing board for the proposed West Street Mews Development.

Thursday night, the New Albany City Council voted 5-4 to reject a PUDD request in an R-2 district at 1105-1109 West Street on third reading, which defeats the proposed ordinance. The proposal was to build 26 townhouses on the 1.9 acres of vacant property. Without a PUDD, only 12 units can be built there now under R-2 zoning laws.

"It's back to the drawing board. This puts an end to this process," said attorney Greg Fifer, who represented West Street Mews Development, after the meeting.

The development had already received approval from the New Albany Plan Commission. And one city councilman, Dr. Al Knable, said he thought it would be a great addition to the neighborhood.

"It would be nice to have this sort of dwelling in there," Knable said prior to the vote. "The key to this is owner occupied. We need more of that in town. I think it would be one of the better developments in that part of town since I was a kid."

However, after a long discussion, the change to a PUDD did not have enough support. Knable, Matt Nash, David Aebersold and David Barksdale voted for the PUDD while Scott Blair, Dan Coffey, Greg Phipps, Bob Caesar and Pat McLaughlin voted against.

City Council Monday: All the mews fit to reject?

Tonight there was a city council meeting, and 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps introduced this PUDD request:

Z-17-03 Ordinance Amending the Code of Ordinances of New Albany, Indiana Title XV Chapter 156 (West Street Mews, Inc. requests a PUDD to permit freehold townhouses in the R-2, Urban Residential district at 1105-1109 West Street)

Amid rumblings of tsunami-intensity storm water chaos from Mt. Coffey, Phipps conceded that he had several issues with the plan to construct townhouses on permeable green space -- though he voted in favor of the proposal when it came came before the Plan Commission because, in his own words, he "didn't want to be the only vote against."

Phipps later reiterated the existence of undisclosed issues but said he'd hate to make the developers incur any further expense.

Meanwhile, Coffey reminded listeners of the incredible miracles of affordable housing and economic recovery achieved in Westendia during his long tenure, and said that townhouse-level density would just plain kill these many advancements.

There finally was a vote, during which Phipps dismissed any of the doubts he hadn't yet explained and voted in favor, but only (or so he stated) because he was the one to bring it to council from the Plan Commission, implying he felt obliged.

He was joined by the three Republicans, leaving council president McLaughlin to cast the deciding vote against the proposal.

THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE DEBATE, NOT A SINGLE ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE ASKED THE MOST PERTINENT QUESTION OF ALL.

Like this:

Why are newly constructed townhouses in Westendia being called "mews," when to call them "mews" is complete and utter nonsense?

mews
myo͞oz
noun (British)

1. a row or street of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables or built to look like former stables.

2. a group of stables, typically with rooms above, built around a yard or along an alley.

Mews? Not these apartments in Massachusetts.

This is more like it.

The proper course of action this evening was to look the developers square in the eye and say:

"Stop insulting our community with cutesy-pie bullshit. Go away, and come back with a name that makes sense."

Well, a boy can dream. Now, see what the real thing looks like in London.

LONDON’S PRETTIEST MEWS STREETS, by Laura (Sometime Traveller)

Wander around the streets of Kensington, Chelsea or Notting Hill and it won’t be long before you stumble across a mews street. You might not notice them at first – they’re often hidden away behind brick archways or ivy-covered entrance ways – but make the effort and you’ll discover some of the prettiest streets in London.

You’ll mostly find mews streets lying behind a row of grand townhouses. The little cottages along these streets used to be the stables for the townhouses back in the day, but nowadays they’ve been converted into multi-million pound properties that you’ll need a lottery win to afford (unless you’re Keira Knightley in Love Actually*).

Below are six of my favourite mews streets in London. Most of them are nice and close to each other in Kensington (Gloucester Road or Earl’s Court are the nearest tubes), so they make a really nice walk, particularly on a sunny day.

*If you want to see the mews where Keira’s character lived, it’s St Luke’s Mews in Notting Hill.