Readers React: Letters: Need hotels but not tax breaks

Re “Low on lodging, L.A. tourism lags,” Business, April 23, and “L.A.’s room service: City should be more selective with downtown tax breaks, some say,” April 19

On the one hand, you’ve got the article about hotel construction firms saying they can’t build without multiyear tax breaks.

Then there’s the story about L.A. lacking sufficient lodging and tourism lagging.
One development officer says his firm is “very bullish on Los Angeles.”

If these companies are so bullish on L.A. , they should not be asking for handouts every time they want to construct a hotel in an area that is in desperate need of them.

Tim Ahern
Culver City

The ridiculous things that large corporations will say — as they attempt to pick the fiscal pocket of local government — never fails to amaze.

The assertion that one proposed project “might not be economically feasible without subsidies” cannot go unchallenged.

If true, then why should the city support a poorly conceived project?

Robert Martin
Pomona

What’s wrong with this picture: The city of Los Angeles claims it doesn’t have the funds to repair streets and sidewalks. It wants to raise taxes or saddle struggling citizens with a huge bond issue to pay for repairs.

But at the same time it is giving or proposing to give millions in tax breaks to developers to build too-large and too-dense hotel and apartment projects downtown.
Does anyone else share my outrage?

What do I have to do to get a tax break on my property in Los Angeles?

Daniel Fink
Beverly Hills

Could it be that both New York and Chicago were built, and their major attractions concentrated, for pedestrian access supported by public transit?

Many of Los Angeles’ museums are in Mid-Wilshire, the studio attractions are in Hollywood or the Valley, and the beaches are miles from those.

And you can’t get to any of those from LAX very easily.

Golly, this was all so easy before L.A. tore out its large public transit system. You did it to yourself, L.A., so quit whining and keep building public transit.

Kelley Willis
Venice

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