The following letter to the editor in today’s Los Angeles Times (Nov. 21) caught our attention. The editors put a headline on it of “The reality of single-family blocks” and magnified the letter itself.
Once again, it is being suggested that those who own and live in single-family homes are wealthy and white.
Such a suggestion implies that single-family zoning is inherently unfair and that every block of homes needs at least one huge box with balconies covering nearly an entire lot, just to bring these homeowners down a rung or two. And, by the way, no need to require parking spaces for the huge box, so parking misery and car windows smashed overnight are added to the neighborhood.
I live in a modest house on a modest street of single-family homes in a fully integrated neighborhood. My experience is not unique, so please let that wealthy-and-white trope disappear, because it is outdated.
I believe these neighborhoods deserve preservation. They promote stability and community. So often the new multiresidence buildings going up present locked doors and gates to the neighborhood with no buffer zone for interaction with neighbors. They may add living space, but they do not add to L.A.’s livability quotient.
There is ample space for growth other than single-family blocks. Near my neighborhood, Western Avenue can be built up. Add a park for the community too.
Ruth Silveira, Los Angeles
The photo accompanying the article looks a lot like the street I lived in growing up. When I left to go live on campus at UCLA, the neighborhood was majority African American/Black, with a lat of Latino homeowners as well. It remains so today. My guess is that the majority of people of all races/ethnic groups would rather live in a a single family home than a multi-family building. Can we plan things better than suburban sprawl? Certainly, but not at the expense of existing neighborhoods.
There is a reason that in 1908 and 1926 City Planner John Nolen created a comprehensive plan for the City of San Diego that preserved beaches, Torrey Pines forest, open spaces, transit lines, high density commercial and industrial separated and away from single family residential neighborhoods. The legacy of the City of San Diego is our crown jewel parks, forests, waterways and healthy single family residential neighborhoods. The current policy of Mayor Todd Gloria and City Council to tear down single family residential neighborhoods and replace them with high density high rise apartments without parking is antithetical to the way we have lived for over 100 years. There are two Constitutionally guaranteed things sacrosanct to the property owner tax payers, the right to feel safe in our own homes and the right to choose within our monetary means where we want to live. We get to choose, not Todd Gloria or the City Council. And we deliberately selected the kind of neighborhood in which we want to live, drive and park our vehicles, and with whom we wish to associate. When a government ignores City Planning and tried to stop us from living where we want to live, it is time to find elected officials who share our values.