Looking ahead to 2019, Ben Carson hoists Jeff Gahan on his own comprehensive plan.

(Associated Press -- June 18, 2019)

A special judge has ruled that New Albany mayor Jeff Gahan must comply with the comprehensive plan his own groveling bootlickers wrote.

At stake is an 8% affordable housing component in the new “Mayor Jeff Gahan Presents the Warren V. Nash Government Center and Basement Anchor Splash Pad at the Historic Reisz Furniture Warehouse Store.”

Is the MJGPWVNGCBASPHRFWS an office or housing? As stated in the the city's 2017 Comprehensive Plan:

When the City of New Albany is a partner in the development of housing through public incentives, a total of 8 percent of the units shall be affordable.

The controversy began when the NA Confidential blog, which no one in New Albany reads, published leaked photos of secret plans to install a complete guest suite in the new city hall for the use of visiting dignitaries.

The 3rd floor suite with hot tub, sun deck, Keurig and pneumatic tube for convenient campaign finance deposits was to be called the David Barksdale Historic Preservation Cash Menagerie, named for the Republican councilman whose key vote enabled Democrats to spend $10,000,000 renovating a building that sold for only $390,000.

According to Adam Dickey, chairman of the Floyd County DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party as well as a permanent sycophantic member of the Redevelopment Commission, “We are thankful that Barksdale fell for that crazy Gahan fib about jumping parties and becoming the mayoral heir apparent. I’m sorry the Republicans kicked him out, but we don't want him as a Democrat -- and I’m pulling enough strings from behind closed doors as it is.”

However, a group of homeless public housing residents displaced by Gahan’s mass demolitions filed a complaint, and Special Judge Ben Carson -- appointed by President Donald Trump for the precise purpose of ensuring Gahan doesn't steal ALL all of The Donald’s dirty tricks -- agreed with the plaintiffs that the guest suite constitutes luxury housing, and therefore is subject to the city’s comprehensive plan.

As Carson read the verdict from the tailgate of a pickup truck parked at the Bob Evans on State Street amid a phalanx of federal troops, municipal corporate counsel Shane Gibson interrupted him with an objection.

"But our beloved Mayor Gahan ... "

“SIT DOWN,” replied Carson. “And don’t think for a moment I can’t whip your butt one-on-one.”

As usual, Gahan could not be reached for comment, but Deputy Mayor Mike Hall released a preliminary plan for compliance with the ruling.

"Here's your stupid 8%," said Hall, displaying this photo of the government center’s affordable housing units, to be located inside the public lavatories.

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

WDRB's Jessica Bard investigates the hitherto unknown "micro-loft" movement, coming soon to a concept being planned for the big hole in the ground at the corner of Market and Vincennes.

Paul Barber, Progressive Land Development partner, said his company plans to build a 50-unit micro-loft apartment complex called the Lancaster Lofts.

“Think about it as the tiny house movement brought to apartment living,” he said.

The early plans show the units are only about 300 square feet. The bed sits in a loft on top of the kitchen in some renderings. Barber said the goal is to get young people living close to downtown for an affordable price, between $500 and $900 per month.

If you're the suspicious type like me, you're wondering why Progressive Land Development chose a building at 131 Washington Street in Providence, Rhode Island to illustrate Lancaster Lofts.

I'm guessing it has something to do with these excerpts from the AS220 web site.

Founded by prolific artist, civic leader, and cultural agitator, Umberto Crenca in 1985, AS220 has developed, owns, and operates three buildings (a total of 100,000 sq ft) in Downtown Providence.

One of the buildings owned by AS220 is the Mercantile Block.

In addition to a wide breadth of public programming and our accomplishments in the realm of urban revitalization, AS220 also provides 60 live and work studios, of which 80% are designated affordable housing. This makes AS220 the leading provider of affordable housing in downtown Providence.

AS220 offers residential and work studios in three buildings: the 115 Empire St Complex, the Dreyfus, on the corner of Mathewson and Washington Street and the Mercantile Block, neighboring the Dreyfus at 131 Washington St. AS220 provides space to artists who seek a diverse, stable and affordable studio environment. The residents of the third floor of Empire Street and the Dreyfus and the Mercantile Block studios are a community of ideas rather than simply a community of tenants.

In short, while it may not be exactly what affordable housing proponents are saying, we all can visualize the approaching photo op: "You wanted affordable housing? Right here it is, at Lancaster Lofts! Come and get some."

And, everyone has to begin including affordable housing in their developments, or so City Hall insists is stipulated in the comprehensive plan.

Micro lofts = affordable housing? This could get interesting.

While you're at it, some vintage Gahan campaign finance, with more surely queued at direct deposit.

Wanna bet the eventual design looks nothing like that building in Providence? But is sure looks good on the evening news.

Gahan's magical kingdom of denial: On the one hand, there's 8% and 40 years, while on the other, 20 years to escape poverty ... maybe.

As well as a percentage it can't even recall. 

Recently one of the mayor's public housing consultancy minions emitted a deep and abiding yawn, then cut, pasted and doodled a purported statement that Jeff Gahan duly signed, as though in some parallel universe he'd actually written it himself -- you know, like Andrew Jackson was alive during the Civil War and shit.

Additionally, any new private housing development that received local government support will be required to reserve a percentage of the units for low-income residents. New Albany is a generous, welcoming community and this plan reflects that spirit.

The minion was too damned lazy to look at the recently minted (and just as quickly forgotten) city comprehensive plan to find the exact percentage, though why would he? The stacked board's votes already were purchased. At least two of the new white male board members refused the customary board training primer. Had they all died on the spot, the posthumous vote would have been the same.

For the record, it's 8%. We showed it to you weeks ago.

Gahan has been planning the public housing putsch for years, and naturally he waited until his knights in shining pasteboard (Flaherty and Collins) showered the city in bocce-intensity luxury before revealing this purely non-binding percentage, which you can bet your sweet bippy will be contested in the future, and when the howls of developers penetrate the Down Low Bunker, the "requirement" will be conveniently flushed downstream, via luxury plumbing enabled by sewer tap-in waivers.

Though once again, I digress.

At the current yearly pace of the city of New Albany serving as "partner in the development of housing through public incentives," and assuming (stupidly) that the city actually enforces the non-binding "requirement," it will take approximately 40 years for the 8% to yield the number of affordable housing units lost to Gahan's bulldozers.

In entirely unrelated news ...

Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong, by Gillian B. White (CityLab)

MIT economist Peter Temin argues that economic inequality results in two distinct classes. And only one of them has any power.

A lot of factors have contributed to American inequality: slavery, economic policy, technological change, the power of lobbying, globalization, and so on. In their wake, what’s left?

That’s the question at the heart of a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, by Peter Temin, an economist from MIT. Temin argues that, following decades of growing inequality, America is now left with what is more or less a two-class system: One small, predominantly white upper class that wields a disproportionate share of money, power, and political influence and a much larger, minority-heavy (but still mostly white) lower class that is all too frequently subject to the first group’s whims.