Playa Vista Is Many Things to Many People

Poor Steve Soboroff and his new Playa Vista job (“Soboroff to Head Playa Vista Project,” Oct. 11). No amount of “word softening” will make this turkey fly. In the end, Soboroff will end up on the dust heap for Playa Vista, where the DreamWorks film studio landed.

Why? Take your pick: The overabundance of methane from the former airplane site; the fact that the gas company uses it for underground storage; the tremendous gridlock that already plagues the site; the pollution, the environmental destruction; the fact that Los Angeles has one of the lowest park-acreage ratios in the U.S. (less than one acre per 1,000 people--San Diego has 12.3); the thousands of residents who are opposed to any development on the site; the countless lawsuits. . . . If Soboroff is Superman then Ballona is kryptonite.

Denise Munro Robb

Los Angeles

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I was appalled that you referred to the Ballona Wetlands as “a bird habitat” in your background box. Would you call the Amazon rain forest a “bird habitat”? The Ballona Wetlands is an entire ecosystem that performs too many functions to list in a letter to the editor.

Frances Longmire

Los Angeles

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I was encouraged to read of Soboroff’s appointment to the helm of Playa Vista. It is refreshing to finally see new, affordable housing being built on the Westside, an area where upper-crust money and a severe shortage of housing have squeezed out middle-and lower-income families. With a freshwater marsh and preserved tidal wetlands to the west and redeveloped aerospace property to the east, Playa Vista will be a very nice place for us ordinary folks to hang our hats.

The self-righteous eco-fundamentalists of the “save all of Ballona” faith prefer that the entire area be restored to prehistoric conditions, denying us the opportunity to carefully balance human needs with habitat protection. These zealots view our society with the same perspective and contempt as other religious fanatics dominating today’s headlines.

David Kay

Culver City