This is one of those awkward and, at least for now, irresolvable situations in which discretion is indeed the better part of valor. The Housing Authority of Columbus exercised that discretion last week in a letter to Mayor Teresa Tomlinson confirming that, as a result of "unexpected opposition," its redevelopment plans for the Booker T. Washington housing complex have been put on indefinite hold.

The plan, as most Columbusites are aware, called for the redevelopment to consist in part of the construction of 100 new apartments in the Liberty District, the Liberty Theater-anchored area recognized as the historic heart of the city's black community. Not only do the location and condition of the BTW apartments make for one of the city's least attractive "gateways," but the complex also occupies a large tract at the intersection of Veterans Parkway and Victory Drive that many see as prime for economic development.

But Liberty District stakeholders, led by, among others, Tax Commissioner Lula Lunsford Huff, object to the plan on the grounds that BTW redevelopment, in the form of mixed-income apartments on three blocks near the Liberty is not the kind of development that is in the best interest of the district, its residents or its property owners.

The mayor, though a vocal and active advocate of the redevelopment plan, invoked the time-honored observation that politics is "the art of the possible," and conceded that "at some point this opportunity just became impossible."

A lot of the debate apparently revolves around questions of timing: What did the various players in this drama know, and when did they know it?

Those opposing the BTW contend it is not in line with the city's 2003 Liberty District master plan. There's a question of whether some members of Columbus Council who supported the redevelopment plan knew what was in the 2003 master plan, or even that it existed. Housing Authority Director Len Williams said the redevelopment project has been in the works, and known to some of its present opponents, for two years. If some of the apartments can't be relocated to the city-owned Liberty District land, then where?

Meanwhile, others involved in this have their own perspectives. Liberty Theatre board chairman Robert Anderson, who supports the BTW redevelopment plan, suggested there's more energy involved in blocking the plan than in the Liberty itself: "Everybody seems to be concerned about the theater, but nobody attends it," Anderson said.

And then, of course, there are the people living in the blighted and deteriorating Booker T. Washington complex who just want to know what, if anything, is going change in their lives, and if so, when.

Tomlinson suggests a Liberty District committee with representation from BTW residents. It would be encouraging if something like that could work, because if there's common ground in this standoff, nobody seems to have found it.

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Liberty, BTW plans both now stuck in limbo