Homeowners and Land Use

In regard to [Gideon] Kanner’s comments (“Taxation and Home Ownership,” Letters to the Valley Edition, June 28) on “regulation-crazy governments . . . restricted zoning and various ‘slow-growth’ regulations that in reality serve NIMBY interest at the expense of public good”: Our overcrowded housing conditions did not happen overnight. If Kanner is alluding to a less-restricted growth pattern, it is going to have to happen in Hemet or Bakersfield because we are built to the hilt here in Los Angeles.

Land-use restriction is necessary to preserve our neighborhoods. Commercial interests are constantly encroaching into residential areas. It is the right of people to protect their homes and lives.

Yes, home prices are high, but that’s because everyone wants to live in Southern California!

When the aforementioned homes in Kanner’s comments were originally purchased, no homeowner thought that someday they would have to battle government to get tax relief, yet Proposition 13 is constantly being undermined by our politicians.

And if Kanner thinks that this nation’s huge debt is going to be borne mostly by homeowners, he is sadly mistaken.

KIP KENNEDY, Tarzana