Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 88, no. 2283: December 16, 1911

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Vol. LXXXVIII DECEMBER i6, 1911 No. 2283 A NEW PHASE OF THE SINGLE-TAX MOVEMENT. The Support Achieved by the Sullivan-Shortt Bill Is in Marked Contrast With the Neglect Experienced by the Other Measures of the Congestion Commission. THE Sullivan-Shortt Ibill is one of twenty-nine ibills and ordinances proposed by the Mayor's Commission on Congestion of Population for submission to the Legislature and the Board of Alder¬ men. This series of proposed legislative measures is contained in the report of the commission, which was printed in the ■'City Record" for March 7, 1011, The report is an extremely voluminous docu¬ ment. Spaco is available here only for the barest outline of its findings and rec¬ ommendations. The report enumerates fourteen main causes of congestion; 1. Poverty, which is dehned as inability to maintain a reasonable standard of liv¬ ing. 2. Concentration of factories and offices. 3. Consolidation of the flve boroughs, 4. Intensive use of land. 5. High price of land, due to intensive use. 6. Lack of control over aliens and citi¬ zens. 7. Long hours o£ work. 8- Cost of transit and the transit policy of the city, transit having in the past been regarded as a matter lo be governed by commercial and not by social consid¬ erations. Cosl of transportation for large Classes in the community is a distinct waste that could be eliminated 'by distn- 'bution of factories, . !) Lack of a definitG city plan. 10. The present system of taxation, un¬ der which, until very recently, the owner of the land improved with buildings has beeh penaliaed, while the man who holds land out of use, so that he may secure the speculative increase of land value, has been helped by the tax pohcy. 11. Failure to prepare land for housing purposes. .. ■ ,. i. :.„ 12. Methods of public and private chat-- ities but especially private chanties. 13 Failure of the city to adoiDt a policy to attract people to outlying boroughs. 14. Immigration and failure to distribute and control immigrants. The recommendations of the conimis- _ «ion were summarized in this digest, given out by the commission in advance of the publication of its report: MeuMurcs Rccommeoilcd. Lot Occupancy o£ Buildings Other Than Tenements.—Requiring at the back of fac¬ tories an open yard the width of the lot and of a. depth equal to one-tenth the height of the building, but not less than ten feet, _ .,. j., 4. Height of Tenements.—Providing ^hat height shall not be greater than the width of the widest street on which the buildmg stands; no tenement shall be more than four stories high, except south of ISlst street, Manhattan, except that one story may be added -for every fifteen per cent, of the lot area left unoccupied less than the present legal occupancy; requiring flreproof construction for tenements of four stories or fifty feet height; limiting tenements in outlying districts to three stories and other buildings in proportion; modifying the tenement house law in re¬ gard to three-family tenements in such a way as to encourage construction of them. Room and Apartment Overcrowding.— Making ninety square feet a minimum tenement room (it is now seventy), wilh one room in each apartment of at least 150 square ifeet (now 120); a minimum per apartment of 000 cubic feet of air space for each adult and ^00 for each child under twelve, with a fine of twenty- five dollars for each violation (it is now 400 and 200, respectively, per room); re¬ quiring the Tenement House and I-Iealth Departments to placard each apartment with the number of occupants permitted; requiring a license to take lodgers; cre¬ ating a burerLu of occupancy in the De¬ partment of Health to enforce the law against overcrowding, - Conditions of Labor. — Appointing , a Deputy State Commissioner of Labor for New York City, with more fa'ctory In¬ spectors; creating a city industrial cora- mission of three persons appointed by the Mayor from nominations by the Employ¬ ers' Associaiion, the labor unions, and one by the Mayor himself, to investigate con¬ ditions, wages, and disputes; creating a series of employment offlces through the State, with a number in New York City, or a municipal employment bureau, with at least one oflice in each borough; cre¬ ating a national department of labor to give wide publicity over the country to the opportunities for work, and to condi¬ tions, wages, and pcrnianencj; of employ¬ ment in ail .sections. Distribution of Factories,—Raising the cubic air space for each employee from 2.50 cubic feet, as at present, to 500 for each day and 000 for each night worker; improving the waterfronts of each bor¬ ough for use as factories and warehouses; building freight lines to connect ail bor¬ oughs; reducing charges lor trucks on municipal ferries. Parks, Playgrounds, Schools, Recreation Centers.—.Acquiring land in advance of public needs, and in outlying boroughs dividing the cost among the property ben- filed, file borough and the city_; limiting schools outside Manhattan to l.oOO pupils, and rooms to forty seats; purchasing with each school yard area adequate to the needs of the children of the neighborhooo; increasing instruction in physiology and hygiene, and teaching children the results of room overcrowding; increasing school gardens, parks, playgrounds, and recrea¬ tion centers. Cheap Land and Good Cheap Housing.— Making the rate of taxation upon all buildings "half the rate of taxation upon all land, and that this reduction ibe se¬ cured by an equal change in each of five "consecutive years"; recommending thai the city -government consider a tax on unearned increment; terminating the ex¬ isting perpetual franchises of transit lines "as opportunity offers by forfeiture"; ex- . tending transit systems to utilize lo their full capacity the subways, bridges and .elevated lines; running lines" into ail sec¬ tions of the city, whether or not they would pay at first, because they will be profitable in "conserving the general -wel¬ fare and prosperity of the citizens"; ex¬ tending the city lines lo the Queens side of the Queensborough Eiidge, and through the Steinway Tunnel into the Borough of Queens; providing in all -franchises for transfers; constructing a subway to the Borough of Richmond (Staten Island), and pending that lo sell forty tickets lor one dollar on the municipal ferries; amending the rapid transit law to give the Public Service Commission and city authorities powers o.ver surface lines equal to those over rapid transit lines; preparing a city plan by the Board of Estiniate, incluciing the following items: restricting lactories to certain districts, providing transit and freight lines, deter¬ mining the main lines and secondary lines of streets, as suggested by Chief Engineer Nelson P. Lewis, of the Board of Esti¬ mate and Apportionment, providing sew¬ ers and substructures for pipes, providing adequate sites for parks, playgrounds, rec¬ reation centers and municipal -buildings, acquisition of adequate land by the city for all public purposes; reducing streets in outlying districts tu thirty feet, with houses set back fifteen to twenty feet from the curb, Jn the hope of reducing rents; providing excess condemnation of land, so that the city may acquire more than is needed for a specific improvement and resell or rent the surplus. Health and Safety. — Empowering the Tenement House Department to vacate insanitary and dark rooms pending struc¬ tural changes, and making the Tenement House Com'missioner a memiber of tbe Boar.d of- Health; organizing a staff of medical inspectors to be assigned hy the Department, of Health to the Tenement House Department to pass upon cases of vacating Insanitai-y tenements or rooms in which there has .been contagious dis¬ ease; requiring that tenement walls be whitewashed every year; prohibiting or adequately regulating manufacture in ten¬ emenl houses. Chanties and Public Outdoor Relief,— Creating a board of trustees of public outdoor relief to dispense such relief to the dependent members of families of con¬ sumptives, and to widows with children, provided they will move into wards with a density not over 800 to the acre, and live under conditions approved toy the board; giving the Comptroller supervision over all charitable institutions exempt from taxation; encouraging the removal from congested districts of charitable in¬ stitutions, exc&pt emergency hospitals amJ similar institutions; acquirig tracts of land for- extending the work of the City Farm Colony and for teaching adults ag¬ riculture and gardening; urging private, charities so to dispense their relief as to encourage distribution of population from congested districts and lo encourage re¬ cipients to learn trades other than those of congested city life. Immigration, — Legislation abolishing time limit on the government's right to deport aliens for cause; progressive meas¬ ures looking toward the effective control over aliens b.y the federal government; encouraging immigrants to become farm laborers, and disoouraging their segrega¬ tion in congested sections; preventing artiflcial stimulation-of immigration; es¬ tablishing city and State farms; publish¬ ing information as to opportunities lo learn the English language; providing for immediate deportation of convicted aliens, in order to relieve overcrowding in State penal institutions. Delinquency.-Closing streets in congest¬ ed districts during certain hours, so that children may use them for playgrounds. Public Square and Buildings.^Providing each borough with at least one large area for public administration buildings and a series of civic centers, Personael ot the Comniiaslon. Before committing one's self to legisla¬ tive changes of so sweeping a character as these, one naturally wishes to know something of the origin and personnel 'o£ the commission. The commission was ap¬ pointed by Mayor Gaynor on May 17, 1910, jn pursuance of a resolution passed by the Aldermen. It consisted of ten Al¬ dermen and nine other members, includ¬ ing Jacob A. Canton, chairman, John Adikes. Russell Bleecker, Clement J. Dris¬ coll, Gilbert Elliott, John J. Flynn, Frank J. Goodnow, Allan Robinson and Charies Schaefer, Jr. Its secretary was Benja¬ min C. Marsh. With one or two exceptions, the raemi- bers of the commission were unknown to the community at large—unknown, that is, so far as their qualifications for the work expected of them was concerned. In view ol the complicated and import¬ ant nature of the task imposed upon the commission, the selection of its members was indeed a remarkable one. Its per¬ sonnel furnished no assurance that its findings would be in harmony with ac¬ cepted opinions of competent authorities in special lines ol research affecting con¬ gestion. The layman, therefore, has no means of estimating the competence ol the report except through such comments as specialists of recognized standing may have' seen fit lo make upon it. Among the special subjects dealt with in the report is, for example, that ol char¬ ities. Are the recommendations of the commission acceptable to scientific stu¬ dents of this subject? Our best source ol inlorniatiozi on this point is the "The Sur¬ vey," edited by Prof. Edward T. Dfivine.. Prof. Devine is in sympathy with the aims of -the commission, whose report he discusses editorially in "The Survey" for March IS, 1911. He calls the report an epoch-making- document, because- it means that a "deliberate and Well-con¬ sidered- attack on the evils of congestion has begun"; but he adds: "Unfortunately the ■ comm-ission has made a great many starts at once, and some of them are false starts. We be-