County’s Housing Goals

Re “Adhere to Housing Goals,” Ventura County editorials, Sept. 26.

This editorial focuses only on the near-term problem of the availability of adequate housing to meet the demand of an increasing Ventura County population. The bigger question is what level of population is sustainable, both from the standpoint of available natural resources and of community-desired quality of life.

The argument that Ventura County must expand housing to meet whatever need exists is obviously faulty. Plainly, at some point natural resources are exceeded. Then what?

You mention two problems of inadequate housing: That all housing becomes less affordable, and illegal crowding of available housing. These will occur whenever demand exceeds supply. I suggest it is better to challenge these problems now before our communities are further degraded by overcrowding.

The desired and / or sustainable level of Ventura County population should be debated sooner rather than later. And then comes the hard part: How can we maintain an adequate quality of life in our communities and sustain our natural resources in the face of an unknown and continuing population demand? Surely the answer is not to keep increasing our housing stock indefinitely. The laws of economics do not dictate that we destroy our quality of life.

RAY KING

Ojai