The nasty squabble between City Council and the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority over English Woods ill serves the city or tenants. The 700 cramped, 60-year-old housing units have no future, yet council and the mayor demand an audit of CMHA's past spending on the site and an independent cost estimate for rehabilitating it. It's an exercise in denial.

Council should stop posing and start partnering with CMHA to redevelop that site.

Two years ago, city officials were interested in CMHA's plan - until English Woods residents backed out of a signed memorandum of agreement. Meanwhile, Westwood and Price Hill residents grew convinced that an increase in crime and blight was the fault of Section 8 voucher families moving in. West side groups lobbied loudly to keep English Woods residents at English Woods and out of their neighborhoods.

CMHA's plan called for demolishing the 700 units, building 40 new assisted rental units, 30 market-rate rentals, 300 homeowner units and replacing lost units outside the city. Without local support, CMHA lost out on federal demolition money and a shot at more Hope VI dollars, which allowed the housing authority to spectacularly transform public housing in the West End with the City West mixed-income development.

CMHA director Donald Troendle estimates it would cost $130,000 per unit, or about $90 million, to modernize English Woods. And there still might not be much demand for the tiny units. Such an investment doesn't make sense. Only 210 of 700 units are occupied. The other tenants voted with their feet. CMHA has struggled with high vacancy at other, newer units at English Woods, and not from lack of trying. The federal Housing and Urban Development agency has consistently ranked CMHA one of the nation's best-run housing authorities.

English Woods residents floated a rehab estimate of $17,000 per unit. Such a minimal fix-up wouldn't pass city codes or HUD rules. English Woods is plagued with asbestos, lead, failing plumbing and other costly problems. The city-funded Alexandra apartments in Walnut Hills opened last year after a $12.7 million renovation of 83 apartments - $153,000 per unit.

How can council expect to fix up English Woods on the cheap or block demolition in the city's only neighborhood with 100 percent assisted housing? Cincinnati's "Impaction Ordinance" prohibits overloading neighborhoods with low-income households and favors mixed-income housing. CMHA's plan would have encouraged a mix of incomes. Yet council killed it.

Troendle predicts English Woods' substandard units next year will fail HUD's new rules and be marked for demolition anyway. Council is delaying the inevitable. The city has offered neither a credible alternative nor money to renovate English Woods. It partnered with CMHA on City West. It should do the same with English Woods.