Chat Room : Next L.A. / A look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metroplis. : Readers Reconstruct Planner’s Vision of the Future

Two weeks ago on this page, city Planning Director Con Howe detailed his view of the future Los Angeles in a conversation with Times staff writer Aaron Curtiss.

Howe’s thoughts on the maturing city and his pledge to preserve neighborhoods- while the boulevards sprout new urban centers- provoked reponses from many readers. Several addressed his comments on the new General Plan Framework, a proposed guide to future growth, working its way through the City Council.

Here is a sampling of reader’s reactions to the Howe interview, “Future Is in the Neighborhood.”

‘The myth of myths’

It is appropriate that the photograph of Con Howe shows him looking skyward because that is what the framework is all about--the Manhattanizing of Los Angeles.

It is not about neighborhoods as Mr. Howe would have everyone believe. That is the myth of myths about the framework. He talks about strengthening existing neighborhoods and reinforcing their character. It is a red herring being used to divert citizens’ attention from what will happen outside their neighborhoods.

The real problem is that the city has severe deficiencies in infrastructure--a completely inadequate transportation system, a severe shortage of neighborhood parks, seriously overcrowded schools, inadequate libraries, exhausted landfills and a water supply inadequate to service the population in times of drought.

What good does it do neighborhoods when traffic from excessively developed commercial streets overflows and the neighborhood streets are crowded? What does the framework promise? Large increases in development on commercial streets while reducing parking requirements.

Mr. Howe’s answer is that neighborhoods should use permit parking to keep out the employees and customers of nearby commercial areas, and the residents of mixed-use housing and high-density residential development who do not have parking. Permit parking is a nuisance to neighborhood residents, but that is Mr. Howe’s way of “strengthening the neighborhoods.”

What good does it do the neighborhoods when the residents cannot get out of their driveways due to the increased traffic congestion promised in the framework, which promises that already excessive commute times will double if the population projections are realized? Anyone who thinks the mass transit system will make a dent in traffic congestion in the next 20 years is smoking too much pot.

What Mr. Howe fails to say is that the environmental impact report for the framework finds significant adverse impacts on the environment of the city will result. Mr. Howe should put a Proposition 65 disclaimer on all his statements stating “Warning: If this plan is adopted, it will be hazardous to your health.”

The problem with the plan is that instead of making neighborhoods and Los Angeles more livable, it does just the opposite. Unfortunately, it is that kind of planning that is driving business and jobs out of the city and discouraging the types of business and manufacturing we need.

We citizens need a plan that manages growth rather than encourages it, one we can afford. We not only cannot afford Mr. Howe’s plan, we cannot live with it. Mr. Howe may like living in New York, but we do not.

Give us a General Plan that plans for growth but does not allow it until all the deficiencies in the existing infrastructure are corrected and that the city has the infrastructure capacity to accommodate the extra growth.

Give us a General Plan that is real, not just a developer’s dream come true. After all, we dream too, and we are entitled to good dreams, not the nightmare that Mr. Howe promises us.

JACK ALLEN

People for Livable and Active Neighborhoods in Los Angeles

‘A bit of heaven’

The Next L.A. will insist that construction of new apartment buildings must include green landscaping around the exterior. It must also include a large sheltered play area for children, with plants and flowers to make it pretty. Parents will organize to take turns supervising the children. Children will keep their play area clean and pretty. Occupancy limits will be enforced.

People of all races and creeds will, together, make these buildings their home, and that will make all the difference. The Next L.A. is going to be a bit of heaven.

DAMIANA CHAVEZ

Mid-City

‘Great things massively overshadowed by the bad’

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I am from Los Angeles and now live outside Washington. I do plan to return to California, but not L.A. I can only see L.A. becoming more of an armpit in 20 years than it is today.

There are many great things about L.A., but they are becoming massively overshadowed by the bad. The East Coast is no paradise, but next to New York, I couldn’t think of a worse metropolitan area to live in.

ANDY DECKER

Alexandria, Va.

‘Ask the people’

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The plan does on purpose what we citizens of the city wouldn’t even do by mistake. . . . Imagine high-rise corridors leading to nowhere, large office buildings empty, artificially built-up commercial projects for a population that doesn’t exist, or if it does exist, doesn’t want them.

People in Los Angeles really don’t live in one big city--they live in neighborhoods. And it seems to me only right that the neighbors should determine what their neighborhood is to look like.

Ask the people. Don’t dictate!

SUSAN CODDINGTON

Pacific Palisades

‘One significant omission: Crenshaw’

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Con Howe’s thoughts about the future of our city were interesting and in many ways I share his views. However, in his list of viable commercial corridors there was one significant omission: Crenshaw Boulevard.

Of all the commercial streets in the central portion of Los Angeles, Crenshaw has the greatest potential for revival and growth. There are a number of active community organizations that have worked to plan for the future of Crenshaw. . . . I encourage Mr. Howe to keep an eye on Crenshaw because the best is yet to come.

JOHN T. GRAVES

Crenshaw

‘New development redirected toward the mountains’

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Mr. Howe is, of course, a newcomer to L.A. Those of us more familiar with the non-textbook recent history of the city can only find frightening his warm and fuzzy portrayal of the framework and its potential impact on the L.A. of the future. The framework, combined with Mayor Riordan’s “streamlining” of the permit process, would cripple residents’ ability to save their neighborhoods in the future.

Mr. Howe doesn’t “foresee changes in the mountain areas” and assumes “there will be more acquisition of land as public open space.” This is naive if not purposely misleading. The draft environmental impact report for the framework states that “new development has become redirected toward the surrounding mountains.” Nature and history gave L.A. enormous advantages: fine climate, varied and beautiful topography, fascinating multiethnic cultures, a vigorous economy. All have been abused and diminished to serve short-term advantage.

ROBERT LOCKER

President, Pacific Palisades Residents Assn.

‘Loud alarms in the ears of community leaders’

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Those of us on the front lines of protecting neighborhoods from unwanted development applaud Con Howe’s statements to preserve neighborhoods. But one element of the proposed General Plan framework must be deleted: the language that calls for the General Plan to override 35 community plans.

Community plans are sacred or have never been in jeopardy until now. For 25 years the Los Angeles city planning procedure has always looked at the impacted neighborhoods and the community plans as the final arbiter on all proposed development. The fact that this General Plan, as currently written, would override community plans rings loud alarms in the ears of community leaders.

NITA B. ROSENFELD

Los Angeles Co-chair, Protect Our Plans

‘it’s worth it’

like all gd mysteries, l.a. is hard to solve.

like all gd mysteries, it’s worth it.

MARK DUNSTER

Hollywood

‘The independent

Republic of Brentwood’

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The following scenarios seem at least as plausible for the future as those set forth by Mr. Howe.

In response to a threatened gang crackdown, gangs unite and take over City Hall at 10 a.m. Friday morning. At 11:15 City Council adjourns for lack of a quorum.

Captured council members are forced by gang members to watch rebroadcasts of council meetings for 12 straight hours.

The mayor, from the independent Republic of Brentwood, decries the gang action as cruel and unusual punishment, while secretly pointing out that city government performs no differently without the council.

Gang members discover all offices above the fourth floor in City Hall are abandoned. Disappointed and bored, they flee City Hall.

Project Restore is finally finished, but government workers refuse to return to City Hall. Neighborhood groups, newly empowered by the city’s framework plan, enact the following:

* Laurel Canyon, Coldwater Canyon and Topanga Canyon become toll roads; the fees for each car are $10,000 per trip with no return trip permitted for five years.

* Passports must be shown when entering the San Fernando Valley from West Los Angeles.

* West Los Angeles bans all entry from the Valley, with or without passports.

MICHAEL THARP

Eagle Rock