Dec. 4, 2025 5 AM PT

To the editor: The answer to our housing problems doesn’t lie in creating more places to build, let alone destroying areas that make California the iconic place it is to live (at present) (“More housing on the California coast? Changes at this agency signal a pro-building shift,” Nov. 14). There have been articles and comments on an almost daily basis, including elsewhere in the Dec. 2 edition of the Los Angeles Times, calling for solutions other than building/rebuilding in areas prone to disaster.

A long-term solution should include the following:

Instead of continuing to expand into new areas and building in fire-prone areas or places subject to violent storms and flooding, how about we promote fewer people in these areas? I.e., either by requiring denser building in already developed areas or, preferably (to me, anyway), promoting slower growth rates or even a decreased population.

Climate change also presents a possibility for denser/decreased population in the future, something increasingly more likely as we put off regulations pertaining to the use of fossil fuels. Parts of the planet may become uninhabitable, forcing us to move into those zones still livable.

As our world’s economy seems to be based on an ever-increasing population, if it were to decrease, it would require a rethinking/restrategizing of our economics. But as it would be quite a while before any decrease in population would be evident, this gives us time to reformulate our economic strategies.

John Snyder, Newbury Park

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To the editor: The Coastal Commission should stay in its lane and do its job of protecting our precious coast for generations to enjoy. Attempting to solve the housing affordability crisis by exploiting our coastlines is shameful — particularly when those doing it have much to gain. Foxes guarding the henhouse.

Emily Loughran, Los Angeles

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To the editor: This article has a section about the Coastal Commission’s origins, although a significant part of its housing history was missing.

When the California Coastal Act established a permanent Coastal Commission in 1976, it required that housing for persons of low and moderate income be protected and, where feasible, provided. That was the law when I served on the commission from 1977 to 1985.. Unfortunately, in 1981, the Legislature repealed the Coastal Act’s explicit affordable housing requirements. Only recently have policymakers and commissioners reembraced more fully the notion that California’s coast should be accessible to all.

Mel Nutter, Long Beach
This writer was chair of the California Coastal Commission from 1983-1985.