Just <i> Who</i> Is Dreaming Here?

Re: the Real Estate Section’s lead article, “Dream Street,” by Leon Whiteson, Oct. 31.

Lack of any real public gathering places? Shame on Whiteson to perpetuate this myth.

We have no urban green spaces to rival London’s Hyde Park or New York’s Central Park? Every community has their own culture and style, and we Angelenos have our own.

Let’s first start with just a few of the many large urban green spaces: Griffith Park, Elysian Park, Balboa Park and all the land that the Santa Monica Conservancy has acquired. A quick look in the Thomas Guide will reveal many more. Each weekend, urbanites flood these green spaces for jogging, bike riding, soccer, horse-back riding and celebrating life’s milestones with picnics and parties. And let’s not forget the miles of beaches used for jogging, swimming, walking, surfing, biking along the bike paths.

No public gathering places? Westwood, Old Town in Pasadena, the Rose Bowl, the farmer’s markets, the street festivals and parades that occur all over the Southland throughout the year.

We live in one of the most glorious places in the United States and all of us would feel more satisfied with our life (albeit difficult with the recession) if the media in Los Angeles--television, radio and print, would focus on our greatness and our uniqueness rather than comparing us other places that are not relevant nor appropriate to our lifestyle or people.

MARIANI SALMON

Glendale

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Certainly Leon Whiteson is not alone in his warmhearted embrace of Universal City Walk (Oct. 31)--it is difficult to fault a project which has already enjoyed tremendous public acceptance. This piece, however, fails miserably when the reader is led to believe that the many architects and urban critics who “balk” at the idea of accepting City Walk as “a true public place” are simply idealists out of touch with “crucial truths about the nature of urban life in the late 20th Century.”

Surely the author jests--City Walk is basically a tourist attraction and the malls and shopping centers across North America are not public places. To accept the inevitability of a privatized public arena is a cynical position indeed, and based on a very myopic world view.

These privately held places are exclusionary and controlled environments. They are not designed to foster community; philanthropic financiers do not build them as places for the local citizenry to hang out, get to know one another, discuss the issues of the day. They are designed to promote consumerism--and, although it is my understanding that there are court cases pending, the owners have the right to remove people at their own discretion.

The “crucial truths” of urban life to which the author refers seem to be centered primarily in Southern California, excluding the myriad experiences of city dwellers throughout the world who enjoy safe, pedestrian-centered public areas. To suggest a City Walk form could even catch hold in other parts of America is quite L.A.-centric--picture townspeople and tourists alike flocking to a “movie set” simulation of Iowa City in Iowa City. And citing historical examples from late 18th-Century Europe, (where the poor were kept out of the Palais Royal except for three special days a year), certainly sent a shiver down my spine. American democratic and egalitarian ideals were shaped by people who detested Europe’s elitist class system.

TERRY BLAIR

Los Angeles

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Some local attractions were missing from Leon Whiteson’s review of the Universal Studios’ City Walk (Oct. 31). There was no mention of the Sunset Strip or Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade (which has satisfied my desire for public space so much that I haven’t found it necessary to drive 15 miles to the corporate version at Universal Studios). Melrose Avenue, the Venice Boardwalk and similar gathering spots down the coast, also went unmentioned. Downtown L.A.’s Broadway and Spring streets, a real hub of commerce for the Latino community of East and Central Los Angeles, also went unmentioned. Disneyland’s Main Street didn’t figure in the discussion either--despite it’s striking similarities.

What about Whiteson’s attention to the lack of crime at City Walk? The most significant thing missing from these place is not crime, as Whiteson claimed. It is cars. The icon of L.A., responsible for as many or more deaths each year by accident as all of the killers put together, is blessedly excluded from these places. This is a lesson that is relatively cheap to implement. Broadway in downtown L.A. would be a great place to start.

The real question is raised by these examples is, “Why haven’t cars been banned from more public places?” Getting there may well be half the fun (I design highway bridges for a living), but enjoying the place itself involves putting the car away and walking. This simple fact was neither invented nor rediscovered by MCA Universal Studios. It needs to be rediscovered by the L.A. City Council and other local governments with the authority to set up pedestrian shopping streets.

BOB SARNOFF

The writer is an engineer for Caltrans.

Many Added Expenses When Refinancing

With the resurgence of low interest rates, homeowners with high mortgage payments should find refinancing a relief.

As a homeowner who has paid a $1,498 mortgage religiously over the years I decided to refinance using the lenders no-cost program. They just basically process your papers and literally change your interest rates, do some prorations and bingo, you get the new promised lower monthly payment.

However, beware if your property has a low appraisal because of the depressed market. It may lead you to encounter new unexpected costs.

My appraisal was a little bit low. I was told my loan-to-value ratio was 83%. For me to refinance, I have to buy mortgage insurance to guarantee that I would not default on the new mortgage payment of $1,231, plus I must pay the mortgage initiation fee of about $970. Then I would have to pay impounds. On top of that, I have to pay title insurance to guarantee that I own the property.

The lenders should look at the applicant’s paying history before asking for guarantees. And what about this title insurance premiums? I can see if the deal is a purchase; the buyer is to be protected. This is just refinancing. Why do you have to guarantee your title to the property? Isn’t a title search enough?

To top that, this is my second refinance. On my first refinance (two years ago), I was also charged huge title insurance premiums, but no mortgage insurance then.

RENE SANTOS

Carson

Being Right No Help in Remo Nightmare

Two years ago we embarked on a remodeling project that turned into a recurrent nightmare. A few weeks after hiring the contractor to remodel our bathroom we began to realize that this person did not know what she was doing.

When our efforts to resolve the matter directly with the contractor resulted in outright belligerence, we called the contractors’ board, the small claims court adviser, an attorney and the city building department for advice. The advice was consistent and we followed it to a T, including obtaining the opinions of eight contractors whose expressions upon seeing the work spoke volumes.

The Contractor’s State License Board refused to investigate and refused as well to even comment on the numerous pictures, city inspection reports and estimates from other contractors all indicating that the work was not to code and needed to be completely redone. Their solution: Let the court decide.

One year and two court hearings later we not only had to hire another contractor to demolish and redo the work, but we were ordered to pay the errant contractor for the “work” and materials she claimed to have purchased. (Mind you, she did not even have to provide us with receipts.)

Judges are not experts in how to remodel bathrooms, they do not make house calls and one can hardly bring one’s bathroom in as evidence of poor workmanship. I think of the Contractors State License Board every time I get into my twice-paid-for shower and it makes my skin crawl. Being right is no solace when others are rewarded for a job poorly done and the agency that is supposed to be monitoring such matters turns a blind eye.

MADELYNN RIGOPOULOS

Huntington Beach

CC&Rs; on Roofing Material Out of Date

I sympathize with Trisha Roberts of Irvine in today’s paper regarding CC&R; violations.

I am being sued by the Park Estate Homeowners Assn. in Long Beach for failure to replace my leaking wood-shake roof with the same material.

The day the association took my deposition, Southern California was ablaze and every newsman and every fire official claimed that the biggest hazard we had in this area was the shake roof.

The CC&Rs; are over 40 years old and the “roof clause” has never been updated to meet with current knowledge of appropriate fireproof materials.

This lawsuit has already cost me several thousand dollars, and the bottom line is that they want me to take off my Class A, fiberglass roof because it is “disturbing the peace and tranquillity” of Park Estates!

Los Angeles has banned the use of shake roofs for new housing and remodeling. When is Long Beach going to do the same?

LOIS PEROVICH

Long Beach