Property Rights

Due to my normal libertarian bent, Nicolai Ouroussoff and I would likely settle on agreeing to disagree regarding property owners’ rights (“There Goes Our History,” April 28). However, I’d like to extend a heartfelt thank-you to the city of Los Angeles for limiting to two the number of cultural heritage “police” that it employs.

New York City is currently facing a massive budget deficit. I can only suggest that Mayor Bloomberg consider the 50-person staff of the Landmarks Commission as an excellent example of waste that can be cut. I would ask Ouroussoff to consider what any homeless shelter in New York could do with that bureaucracy’s budget.

I realize I am not one of the “cultural elite,” but if I had a home for sale that Ouroussoff wanted to save for the city’s “historic appreciation,” I’d hope that he and his enlightened brethren would swoop in to purchase it at fair market value. I think it would be great. However, if someone wanted to bulldoze it, I truly hope our tax dollars would be spent feeding hungry mouths, here and abroad, rather than paying a bloated bureaucracy to prevent destruction of personal property by the owner.

One recommendation: I’d encourage Ouroussoff to start a nonprofit organization dedicated to purchasing these homes. The Nature Conservancy (of which I am proud to be a member) does a fantastic job of doing similar work for nature habitats.

Using taxpayer money to enforce the taste of Ouroussoff’s cultural elite on “average homeowners” is one of the most reprehensible ideas I have heard in quite some time.

Again, thank you Los Angeles for underfunding the Cultural Heritage Commission.

ERICK JONES

Glendale

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It took me many years to realize and truly appreciate the lasting value of architecture. I look at it this way: Of all the things that pass through life--people, friends, relatives, cultural attractions, etc.--one of the few that can endure are buildings and homes. They serve to preserve a lasting sense of place and to connect us to our past.

And yes, as Ouroussoff wrote, “they are the physical expression of the city’s highest ideals.”

Destructions of the Schindler and Neutra houses were acts of cultural homicide. I am saddened and appalled.

DAVID LEWIS

Piedmont