Gated Communities

Re "Life's Just Better Behind the Gates," Letters, June 2: I agree with Skillman Hunter, whose letter says living in gated communities is safer. Gated communities bring peace and quiet and the lack of solicitors. It is sad that people these days seem to be able to bother anybody anywhere. We have people in our communities who don't have anything better to do than vandalize, torment or steal from others. It is sad to say that the only way to escape these problems is to move into a house behind gates.

The 7,000 residents of Newport Coast, who dwell in expensive, gated neighborhoods with breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, become citizens of Newport Beach today. "It brings us very close to completing the city," Newport Beach City Councilman Gary B. Adams said. "This is a win-win for both the city and the coast."

The California Coastal Commission's staff recommended issuing a coastal development permit to build a 70-home gated community at Hellman Ranch. The commission already approved Hellman Properties LLC's subdivision plan in October 2000 after the developer made significant concessions, including agreeing not to build a golf course on sensitive coastal wetlands and agreeing to sell another tract of wetlands to the state once oil operations are complete.

The fliers dub Williams Springs Estates a "soon to be exclusive gated equestrian community" in Orange County's Williams Canyon. Think million-dollar homes, panoramic views and 4-plus-acre lots with the Cleveland National Forest as a backyard. But the exclusive gated community may have to do without the gates. In a decision that has bewildered residents, county officials refuse to allow privately owned Williams Canyon Road to be gated.

For nearly 170 years, Gramercy Park has been a leafy, gated enclave in lower Manhattan, a refuge from urban cacophony. Surrounded by elegant brick buildings, the East Side park anchors a rich, largely white neighborhood that was home to Herman Melville and Edith Wharton in the 19th century, and now includes such celebrities as Julia Roberts and Winona Rider.

On March 22, a teenager returned to his high school campus and wounded five teachers and students, less than three weeks after and six miles away from where another youth killed two and wounded 13 at his school. All day long, I heard people discussing their hypotheses about what had created this disaster. I kept hearing things like "Why are these kids so frustrated?"

A 600-acre fire swept close to million-dollar homes Tuesday, and four teenagers were held on suspicion of starting the blaze, authorities said. Ventura County sheriff's deputies arrested Chad Montagnino, 18, of Westlake Village, a 17-year-old from Thousand Oaks, and two 16-year-old boys from Agoura Hills in connection with the fire, which started about 2:25 a.m. in heavy brush near the 4000 block of Lakeview Canyon Road, said Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Nelson.

The California Coastal Commission gave final approval Wednesday to a plan for a 70-home gated community on Seal Beach's Hellman Ranch, ending two decades of battles over the coastal property that, at one point, triggered apparent death threats against local officials. The commission voted unanimously for the plan by Hellman Properties LLC to build the upscale community on 18 acres of a 196-acre undeveloped parcel near the San Gabriel River.

Centuries before it was developed as a finely groomed and impeccably planned gated community, the tall bluff overlooking Newport Bay served a far more solemn and far more forgotten purpose, say the descendants of two Native American tribes. "Six hundred ancient people were buried here and then removed from their graves so that these monstrosities could be built," Lillia Robles announced gravely to a circle of 50 rapt listeners Saturday. "They were people who didn't destroy.

Hidden Hills is an affluent, gated community sheltered from the rest of the city, where Los Angeles county sheriff's deputies sometimes knock on homeowners' doors to remind them to lock their garages. But the comfortable security enjoyed by the nearly 2,000 residents here was ruptured this week following a home-invasion robbery early Tuesday. Deputies say a masked gunman tied up a married couple, believed to be in their late 50s, and took a $100,000 worth of jewelry they had in a safe.