Irvine Co. Projects Called ‘Class Job’

I am writing in response to Dawn Aberg’s caustic letter regarding the Irvine Co. and its master plans (“With Luck, Irvine Co. Layoffs May Prove More Than Momentary Setback,” Feb. 2).

She says that the Irvine Co. “has given us the obscene materialism of Fashion Island, the endless sea of terra-cotta that is Irvine and the ecological disaster of the Newport Coast development.”

Wow! How could I have been so stupid all these years? I didn’t realize how bad things had gotten since that mean old Irvine Co. began building after World War II.

Matter of fact, after viewing at close range other coastal communities from Santa Barbara to San Diego for the past 69 years, I’m rather proud of our area. And if real estate prices are any measure, others agree. It would be nice to have unlimited miles of open country along our coastline, but, unfortunately, that’s not where the people who can afford it want to live.

I have no connection whatsoever with the Irvine Co. But to label them “promoters of latter-day feudalism and cultural mind control” is, methinks, a bit much. Sounds like a little paranoia has crept in here, or maybe too many sessions of the movie “Robin Hood.”

We certainly can’t change the land grant laws that worked out so nicely for the Irvine Co. I for one, however, can be thankful that they have done a class job, for the most part, of developing their residential and commercial properties. Could be lots worse.

RON WALKER, Huntington Beach