Horses and Homes

Re “Horse Owners Snort at Home Plan,” Feb. 23.

As a resident of the neighborhood discussed and a 25-year Chatsworth resident, I have been observing with some amusement the ongoing battles concerning the horse owners in our area.

On our rural dirt road, certain resident horse owners have been lobbying somewhat successfully for zoning changes that would permit commercial use of their properties for boarding, lessons, etc. Other residents here have been lobbying against such a change due to the increased traffic and all that goes with it.

I have been privy to some nasty behaviors exhibited by the horse owners (insults, shouting, etc.) toward anyone who does not agree with them. They were exhibiting those same behaviors in the matter your article discusses.

I had to laugh when I read about the “raucous hearing” in Van Nuys where the “owners of horse properties repeatedly interrupted the commission’s deliberations, booing loudly,” and how one ranch owner who spoke in favor of the development was “roundly booed as he returned to his seat.”

It now appears that Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, the horse owners’ champion on the issue of our road, has done a total about-face on the issue discussed in your article. His opinion that this development would “stave off more intensive residential or commercial developments” while he has recently approved commercial use for our road seems hypocritical to me.

I imagine he is in for more raucous boos from the Snorting Horse Owners.

KEVIN FENNELL

Chatsworth

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The city Planning Commission dealt a heavy blow to one of the few remaining rural areas in Los Angeles by voting to recommend a change to the Chatsworth General Plan to accommodate a non-horse-keeping housing development.

Four houses--the difference between what the developer wanted and what the plan would have allowed--are not going to solve L. A.’s housing shortage. Even if the developer, who obviously has influential friends in the mayor’s office and on the Planning Commission, arranges the property such that homes bordering the horse-keeping properties are farther away, it still sets neighbors against each other.

People who purchase property zoned for farm animals know they will be living in an animal-centric community. However, add a few land speculators and soon the animals will have to go to accommodate them.

I predict that this decision will unify people who chose to live in areas of L. A. that historically have offered an island of sanctuary in an otherwise faceless city.

It is not by accident that equestrian programs are used to [reach] kids at risk for gangs, humanize prisoners, provide the handicapped with additional opportunities to excel in sports, and heal wounded, isolated souls.

Shame on you who are money-, politics-, ego- and power-centric. You all might recapture a life if you had a horse to teach you.

KATHY DELSON

Shadow Hills