Newhall Ranch Project Gets the Nod

Do any L.A. County supervisors, or any government officials at all, anywhere, see any connection between your two May 28 articles, “Supervisors OK Newhall Ranch” and “Consumers Asked to Renew Efforts to Save Energy” (Business)? Is L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky the only one with a functional brain who is able to see a solution other than the vicious circle of ever more freeways and then more building of houses that will never be enough to satisfy the endless number of people who think we must accommodate them? These officials then ask the public to cut its consumption of resources because they cannot say no to developers.

It’s time to say to all of them: If you don’t build it they won’t come! This also pertains to Orange County, and many other counties, whose officials seem to have not a clue about the consequences of their actions.

Joan Scott

Yorba Linda

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What was the L.A. County Board of Supervisors thinking when it approved the Newhall Ranch project? Everyone knows our freeway system is maxed out. And now they’re going to add at least 20,000 cars to the 5 and 405 freeways twice a day? Without any plan to accommodate this traffic? The developers will get rich while the rest of us get soaked -- both in terms of outrageously longer commutes and more taxes to pay for freeway improvements. Forget recalling the governor. Let’s recall the Board of Supervisors.

Robert Newcombe

La Canada

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Re the Newhall Ranch development, one sentence jumped out at me: “For nearly a decade, the project has been under debate.” A decade! No wonder there is a shortage of affordable housing, when it takes 10 years of fighting bureaucrats, NIMBYs and environmental nuts to get permission to build homes. Who can afford a new house when the price has to cover 10 years of attorneys’ fees?

What really bugs me is that the activists who oppose and delay projects like Newhall are probably a lot of the same people you’ll find protesting over the plight of the poor and the homeless. Make up your minds, folks. If you care about the poor, then don’t stand in the way of economic growth, jobs and housing.

Frederick Singer

Huntington Beach

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Re “Developer Creates an Opening,” May 29: 70,000 homes in the Tejon Ranch area and 20,000-plus homes in Newhall Ranch. Just wondering, what are we going to do with all the traffic on the 5 Freeway? That’s right, we don’t worry about that until after we build.

Chris J. Wheller

Mill Valley, Calif.