Neighborhood Rights

I react with a mixture of anger and despair whenever I encounter sentiments such as those expressed by Ted Brown (Letters, May 20):

He dwells on private-property rights and businessmen’s rights and advises everyone else to mind his own business. We must recognize that decisions taken regarding one piece of property can affect every other property in the area. Moreover, can businessmen always be trusted to do the right or appropriate thing? I point to the savings and loan situation, and the insider trading scandal, as recent examples of businessmen’s behavior without supervision or restraint.

No one of us has complete freedom to do as we please. We are all subject to traffic laws, to building codes and zoning laws. We cannot be as noisy as we might like in our homes, we are required to keep our dogs on a leash and to prevent them from becoming nuisances, we must be sensitive to others.

Ted Brown believes we should shut up and let developers impose their visions upon us. I submit, that developers are interested only in profit, and their visions rarely coincide with those of the neighbors.

At a time when we need more affordable housing, more green and open space, our precious real estate is given over to mini-malls, in some instances, one on each of the four corners of an intersection.

The residents of a neighborhood have every right to have a say in what is done in their area. I say, more power to the activists!

JANICE K. MASLOW

North Hollywood