‘Two Sides of Yaroslavsky’

In reply to “The Two Sides of Zev Yaroslavsky,” by Bill Boyarsky, Metro, Feb. 21:

As past presidents of homeowner associations in Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky’s district, the observations in your article do not come as a total surprise. However, although we have had our differences with him over important development issues before down-zoning became a safe political issue, he provided leadership in tackling the down-zoning of many areas, including Century City. We think your article does not fairly or accurately describe the political and planning realities we faced in fighting various projects:

1. There was no leadership from the mayor’s office, or even expressions of concern over the proliferation of development.

2. The City Council had a pro-development orientation. When major issues reached the council, it slided with the developer.

3. There is no discussion in the article about the amount of development that could have been constructed but was changed by efforts of the councilman. Although in our view it was not sufficient, important steps were taken along the way in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, including major down-zonings of Century City and along Third, Beverly Boulevard, Melrose, Westwood, Santa Monica, Pico and of the Gateway project at Santa Monica Boulevard and Sepulveda. Further, creative and bold attempts were made by Yaroslavsky, professional planners, and homeowners to create new planning tools to cope with development and the traffic it generated. Limiting the size of a project based upon the amount of traffic it generated was one such idea, and it has been adopted for other major city planning problems.

As homeowners, what we want and need now is leadership that recognizes the serious problems we face to preserve our neighborhoods and is willing and able to find both long- and short-term approaches to control growth in a way that preserves our quality of life.

RONALD D. ROSEN

Past President

Beverly-Angeles Homeowners Assn.

DON GENOVESE

Past President

Westwood Gardens Civic Assn.,

and Westside Civic Federation