Housing Bonds for Playa Vista

In “Council Role in Playa Vista Housing Plan Draws Criticism” (Dec. 10) Councilman Richard Alatorre said: “Don’t insult me by saying that affordable housing should only be built in South-Central or East L.A. In other words: Keep it there.” The low-income housing is a sop thrown to the community by the Playa Vista gang in an effort to gain permission to destroy the wetlands and the Westside community for profit. We never said to keep affordable housing in South-Central or East L.A. We said to put Playa Vista’s jobs there. Housing projects keep people poor; jobs eliminate poverty. Putting Playa Vista in South L.A. would eliminate the need for more affordable housing there by putting jobs where they’re needed.

The Ballona area already has universities, studios, large and small retail, tourist trade and minimum-wage jobs at the airport. It also has the last wetlands in L.A. County. South L.A. has no jobs nearby and no wetlands to lose. Playa Vista in Ballona is an insult to the people and the very soil of our city. Playa Vista in many other spots would be a shining wonder.

RICHARD RISEMBERG, Los Angeles

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I find The Times’ support of the Playa Vista development (editorial, Dec. 5) to be both stunningly ignorant and morally bankrupt. At a time when the rest of the nation is attempting to preserve and recover precious wetlands, you persist in supporting a mindless bulldozing project that has come to pass solely out of the shortsighted greed of a small group of fat-cat speculators.

Your attitude toward our mixed urban environment has always been closer in tone to TV’s “When Animals Attack” than to anything fair-minded or balanced. You again prove your collusion with the unholy trinity of greed, fear and ignorance in supporting yet more wholly unjustifiable desecration of our dwindling natural resources.

BUDDY ROBERTS, Los Angeles