A Storm Is Coming: Bane is probably not going to show up anytime soon, but Normaltown is starting to resemble the Gotham City of The Dark Night Rises. It's tearing itself apart.

Residents have been grumbling for a while now about the student rental houses sprouting up on King Avenue. Then, two weeks ago, homebuilder Jared York ripped out a giant oak tree on Talmadge Drive, casting himself in the role of Saruman to the neighbors' Ents (Apologies for nerding out here. Bear with me.) Last Thursday, the latest round in the fight over a Buena Vista Heights historic district played out at City Hall.

The arguments, at this point, ought to be not just familiar, but rote, to any Athenian who's involved in civic life. The property rights of longtime homeowners who want peace and quiet versus the property rights of those who want to cash in. The creative destruction of the free market versus maintaining what makes a community great as it is. The affordable housing offered by the small, aging abodes common intown versus students' and families' demands for newer and larger houses.

People like Amy Bramblett know this. Athens-Clarke commissioners have been trying to fix Carr's Hill for years, tweaking the zoning again and again to discourage tightly packed student housing where four SUVs are parked on the curb of a narrow street and no one has any privacy. It hasn't worked. Bramblett told the commission that she's leaving Carr's Hill because the neighborhood has become "unlivable."

She's moving to—you guessed it—Buena Vista Heights, which could fall victim to the same trend, although Bramblett opposes the historic district. The University of Georgia's new health sciences campus on Prince Avenue and its 800 students, faculty and staff are creating enormous development pressure, Commissioner Ed Robinson noted. York cutting down that tree definitely didn't help build trust.

"Developers can promise us anything, but their promises are empty," one speaker told the commission. And newcomers to the neighborhood are viewed with suspicion. "It's like I'm a rich doctor that wants to come in and build a McMansion," Don Scott said. "That's not true."

Across Prince on Talmadge, residents are talking about asking for a zoning change that would outlaw houses on 8,000 square-foot lots—the current minimum—thus preventing builders from throwing up two houses on one lot, as York is doing. Of course, Athens is also a community that hates sprawl, which means denser development intown, which most people seem to want in theory, but not in practice (or at least not in their back yards). In any case, it'll be time for a new comprehensive plan here in a couple of years, but by then it will probably be too late.

Oh, and the historic district? The commission is going to table it. "We have strong viewpoints," Commissioner Mike Hamby said, in a bid for understatement of the year. "People care about their neighborhood and the way it looks."

Reality Check: As important as smart growth and protecting neighborhoods are, let's put it in perspective. Athens is a city where more than a third of residents live in poverty, a third of students don't graduate from high school and a half-dozen people are murdered each year. If only we were as passionate about those issues as the house somebody wants to build down the street.

Cuts Like a Knife: During the recession, state legislators had to, as House Speaker David Ralston puts it, put down the scalpel and pick up the machete. Most folks in Athens have had just about enough, thank you very much, of our state government's slashing spree that's bleeding out UGA, public schools, the state archive and everything else in sight.

But it's not over yet. Ralston called the current budget situation "the new normal." And more people are signing up for Medicaid (even before the Affordable Care Act expansion kicks in), so Georgia is facing a $400 million shortfall, he told the UGA College Republicans last week.

"We're looking again at having to do some tough and unpopular things to keep this state afloat," he said.

The last time this happened, in 2010, Gov. Sonny Perdue solved the problem by pushing through a "bed tax" on hospitals that prevented a cut in reimbursements. The result was a near-revolt in the Senate and a lot of uncomfortable questions for incumbents in November, so don't expect that to happen again. The House will take up tax reform again next year—along with transportation funding and a lobbyist gift ban—Ralston said. But these guys all signed the Grover Norquist pledge, and the tea party will hold them to it. If it's not revenue neutral, it doesn't stand a chance.

Oh, and Ralston also talked a little smack about Carter Kessler, the Athens Republican House candidate who's been running against the GOP establishment. "I'm not really familiar with his campaign, except I saw (on Flagpole.com) where he said the leadership in Georgia is crooked," Ralston said. "That might have something to do with" why Republican leaders aren't supporting him.

As for incoming Rep. Regina Quick, R-Athens, who declared her independence while campaigning against Rep. Doug McKillip, it sounds like there's no hard feelings. "We're going to welcome her and respect the decision the voters have made," Ralston said.

Editor's note: This column has been corrected to accurately reflect Amy Bramblett's views on the Buena Vista historic district.