Zoning

People generally don't think of the elderly as nuisance neighbors. They rarely throw loud late-night parties, play loud music or have loud sex. Nevertheless, the issue of elderly group homes is a controversial one in single-family neighborhoods. On a stretch of leafy Sierra Bonita Avenue near Hollywood, an operator of board-and-care facilities wants to tear down a duplex and construct an 11-bed facility for elderly residents suffering from dementia. In theory, that's fine: According to state law, a city cannot prohibit licensed care facilities that meet the zoning requirements.

Todd Hardesty/Alaska Video Postcards Inc. One of the Grant Creek pack's two primary breeding females during the 2009-10 season at Denali. The wolf died of natural causes this spring, while the other female was snared in a trap.

Apparently having no original ideas relating to creating a viable zoning ordinance and not interested in how other cities have resolved similar issues, Elizabeth Moule advocates eliminating the entire concept of zoning (Ideas, Nov. 5). No doubt that zoning causes delays and results in increased costs. However, the alternative is to eliminate community input and environmental protections in the development process. Uncontrolled growth results in streets constantly shaded by high-rise construction, street and sidewalk congestion caused by increased density, higher taxes to pay for infrastructure and a myriad other problems.

People generally don't think of the elderly as nuisance neighbors. They rarely throw loud late-night parties, play loud music or have loud sex. Nevertheless, the issue of elderly group homes is a controversial one in single-family neighborhoods. On a stretch of leafy Sierra Bonita Avenue near Hollywood, an operator of board-and-care facilities wants to tear down a duplex and construct an 11-bed facility for elderly residents suffering from dementia. In theory, that's fine: According to state law, a city cannot prohibit licensed care facilities that meet the zoning requirements.

The longtime residents of the Santa Fe area of Placentia do not want to be pushed out by apartments! We love our homes, and we want to be allowed to live out our lives in our homes without the threat of a bulldozer. As we have said at City Council meetings--if R-3 zoning (high density apartments, 25 units to an acre) is such a great gift, give it to someone who wants it. We don't. MRS. VIOLA PLACENCIA Placentia

A zoning request that would allow the operation of a collection center for recyclable building materials will be among the San Fernando Valley items under consideration by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, which will meet Thursday in Sherman Oaks. The commission's agenda includes: * A request by the owner of a vacant piece of property at 14280 Paxton St. in Pacoima for a zone change that would permit operation of a collection and container-storage facility for recyclable materials.

The Torrance City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to change the zoning of a block in the old downtown area, requiring a public hearing before any construction takes place on that block. In a petition to the City Council, 16 residents of the 1000 block of Amapola Avenue had asked the city to help preserve the block by declaring it an historic overlay district. During the meeting Tuesday some residents said they feared that without the historic zoning, developers may tear down older homes and build large condominiums.

Being circulated this week are the first of the petitions for a proposed ballot initiative this fall to limit commercial development in select areas of Los Angeles. Better late than never. Better also that for a change the public will have an opportunity to redefine zoning--albeit for now through the ballot box--rather than fumbling city planners, finagling politicians and finessing developers and their lubricious lobbyists and lawyers.

Cypress residents will vote Tuesday on the controversial Cypress Downs, a proposed 167-acre project to transform a former public golf course into a business and recreational complex next to Los Alamitos Race Track. The measure--the only item on the special election ballot--is the culmination of years of debate and legal wrangling over how one of the largest remaining open spaces in northwestern Orange County should be developed.

The City Council unanimously approved a zoning change Wednesday for a $400-million project at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. About 30 small businesses are being displaced through the city's eminent domain powers to make way for a W Hotel, condominium and apartment units, and shops and restaurants. One business owner, whose luggage store has been there for 60 years, is fighting the displacement. The project is one of the most ambitious revitalization efforts in Hollywood.

Americans eat too damn much. And we all pay a rising cost for this gluttony in the form of higher insurance premiums and lost productivity. A study last year by the Society of Actuaries calculated the total economic cost of an overweight and obese population in the United States and Canada at about $300 billion a year (with 90% of that figure attributable to America's dietary issues). Now comes word from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that, if current trends continue, about 42% of the U.S. population will be obese by 2030.

ALBUQUERQUE - How many of these could you answer? What is conserved in an inelastic collision? (Momentum.) Where were the Boer wars fought? (Modern-day South Africa.) What compositional technique did the 19th century French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz create? ( Idée fixe.) And what is the difference between the surface areas of two spheres with radii of four and six? (80 pi) The Granada Hills Charter High School students here for the national Academic Decathlon competition have spent months studying the guides those questions came from.

A bill backed by House Republicans would stall plans to let sea otters reclaim their historical range off Southern California because of concerns that the threatened marine mammals would compromise commercial fishing and military training operations. The Military Readiness and Southern Sea Otter Conservation Act , sponsored by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), would keep a controversial "no-otter zone" south of Point Conception in place until wildlife officials develop a plan ensuring that the furry creatures and endangered abalone recover and that the commercial shellfish harvest stays at current levels.

Members of the U.S. military — especially enlisted troops in the Army and Marines — were significantly more likely to cause auto accidents within six months of returning from deployment, according to a study by USAA Property and & Casualty Insurance Group, a major insurer for military families. These veterans probably are engaging in survival driving habits for a war zone, such as not stopping in traffic, driving fast and making sudden, unpredictable turns, experts said. But those same driving practices create havoc back in the United States.

Susan Kang Schroeder ticked off the facts of the case: A man bought a 5-year-old girl from Vietnam, used her as a sex slave for more than a decade and forced her to invite over friends whom he molested during sleepovers. "She was made to do every possible sex act," Schroeder said with a bluntness she honed as a prosecutor. But this wasn't a jury. It was the seven members of the Huntington Beach City Council. And if the aim of the Orange County district attorney's chief of staff was to grab their attention with the story of one of the county's most notorious pedophiles, it worked.

Singer-songwriter M. Ward is an introvert blazing through an extrovert's world. In the span of 13 years, the 38-year-old artist (born Matthew Stephen Ward) has grown from recording hushed bedroom music in Portland, Ore.'s alt-troubadour scene to making albums with sitcom star Zooey Deschanel, co-founding the folk-rock supergroup Monsters of Folk and playing both Friday nights at this year's Coachella festival. Ward hasn't lost his affection for closeted, sometimes experimental folk, but in the last few years he's let in more light.

Zoning changes that appear to doom plans for a downtown crematory were unanimously approved. The City Council voted Monday to further strengthen a recommendation made last month by the Planning Commission to limit crematories to industrial and light industrial districts. The change nullifies a previous use permit issued to Keaton's Mortuary to build a crematory at its downtown location.

ELK GROVE Medical marijuana dealers could set up shop here if the City Council approves zoning changes proposed by planning commissioners. A new ordinance regulating where such shops would be located and their hours is to be taken up by the council April 7. A store offering marijuana for patients with certain medical problems opened two months ago in nearby Roseville.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — They serve on a remote Himalayan glacier known as the world's highest combat zone, in a fiercely disputed region that has sparked two wars between archrivals Pakistan and India. But instead of dying in battle, 117 Pakistani soldiers were feared lost Saturday in a massive avalanche that entombed their lonely headquarters. Most of the soldiers were believed to have been in the battalion's main building when the avalanche struck about 6 a.m., burying the men under 70 feet of snow, Pakistani military officials said.

REYHANLI, Turkey - Somewhere in Syria near the border with Turkey, thousands of refugees are hunkered down in a makeshift camp, afraid to go forward or go back. They cannot return home, because their villages in Syria's northwest Idlib province have become war zones, places full of government tanks and helicopters, and bodies in such large numbers that they have to be buried in mass graves. And across the border in Turkey awaits a country that is unprepared for the influx of refugees, where some are staying in sports arenas or schools as the government rushes to erect new camps for the thousands who have recently poured in. Instead, the families sit in a valley along the border in large tents normally used for wakes.