To the editor: I’m a bit tired of seeing historic places framed as a barrier to affordable housing (“Faced with community complaints, Mayor Karen Bass retools her affordable housing strategy.”) While they deserve care and consideration, most of them can, should and do change over time. They’re also a key piece of the affordable housing puzzle.
Most public discourse (and coverage) focuses on housing production, but we can’t build our way out of this crisis. We need a mix of approaches that includes using what we already have. This includes maintaining the housing that’s affordable now — much of which is in older buildings, adapting existing buildings for residential use, which creates thousands of affordable units each year in the U.S., and adding compatible new housing to older neighborhoods — including historic districts. Courtyard apartments and low-rise residential buildings have always been part of L.A. neighborhoods and creative new takes on “missing middle” housing abound.
We can meet our housing goals without sacrificing our cultural heritage, but it takes compromise on everyone’s part. Some people have weaponized preservation to hinder any form of development. Others buy into outdated notions of what preservation is, isn’t and can be. It’s far more flexible than many people think. Preservation is a tool to make life better; the key is in how we use it.
Cindy Olnick, Los Angeles
