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Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 100, no. 2594: Articles]: December 1, 1917

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REAL ESTATE AND Copyright, 1917, by The Record and Guide Co,) NEW YORK, DECEMBER 1, 1917 AMERICAN CITY PLANNING INSTITUTE MEETS TO DISCUSS BUILDING ZONE PLAN THE recent meeting of the American City Planning Institute in this city discloses that the zoning movement started by New York City is fast spread¬ ing to the other cities of the country. This session of the Institute was held in New York City for the special pur¬ pose of permitting those interested in zoning in other cities to study at first hand the actual operation of the New York law. Commissions to prepare zon¬ ing plans have been appointed in Phila¬ delphia, St. Louis, Newark and other cities. Members and representatives of these zoning and city planning commis¬ sions and committees to the number of about one hundred attended the con¬ ference. The morning session was held in the office of the Committee on the City Plan of the Board of Estimate, in the Municipal Building. Edward M. Bassett, former chairman of the New York Dis¬ tricting Commission, presided. The de¬ tailed methods and results of zoning were discussed by Robert H. Whitten, secretary of the Committee on the City Plan ; Rudolph Miller, chairman of the Board of Appeals; H. H. Murdock, archi¬ tect, and Francis P. Schiavone, of the staff of the Committee on the City Plan. After this session the members of the conference took an automobile trip through lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. They were specially interested in the preservation of residential districts and in the detached house sections of Flat¬ bush. where, under the "E District" regulations, the erection of apartment houses has been stopped. Groups of visiting planners were con¬ ducted through the Washington Square section, where certain residential areas are to be preserved under the zone plan ; also through 14th street, 23d street and Sixth avenue, old retail and department store centers. They were also shown recent interesting examples of the use of the set-back principle in the con¬ struction of buildings in order to comply with the height provisions of the zone law. In the evening the visitors held a meeting in the Engineering Societies Building, Lawson Purdy presiding. Ad¬ dresses were made by John P. Fox, con¬ sultant to the Committee on the City Plan; B. A. Haldeman, engineering ad¬ visor to the Philadelphia Zoning Com¬ mission ; Harland Bartholomew, engi¬ neer of the St. Louis Zoning Commis¬ sion, and others. This meeting in New York was the first held by the Institute. The National City Planning Conference has been meeting annually for several years. At the last meeting, at Kansas City, the American City Plan Institute was organ¬ ized as a section of the conference to include the technical members. It was organized for the purpose of permitting more detailed discussion of city planning problems than would be appropriate at the general meeting of the conference. H. H. Murdock. of Jardine. Hill & Murdock. architects, spoke on how the law has actually worked out in thc sixteen months since its passage. He said, in part: "This zoning resolution has been in effect less than a year and a half, and during that time there has been less building than normal. This condition has. of course, had considerable bearing on this subject, because, had there been more activity during this period, more questions would probably have been raised and defects not yet shown brought out. "The law is divided into three main parts—first, regulation as to use; second, regulation as to height, and third, regu¬ lation as to area to be covered. "Of these, the first is the most im¬ portant, that is, regulation as to use, because it has the most effect on the whole city and tends toward stabilizing conditions. The height regulation is im¬ portant, but it applies in practice to a few, although very important sections. The area requirements are also im¬ portant, but they are not so widely different from what the existing laws permitted, and what we had become used to to have an important bearing on this subject. Development of New York City, "To understand the working out of this law one must study the develop¬ ment of New York City. New York has grown from the small trading post of the Dutch East India Company, at Bowling Green, steadily eastward and northward. Business has driven the resident centers before it as the prairie fire is driven before the wind, so that literally what was a resident district a few years ago is almost abruptly trans¬ formed into a mercantile center of to¬ day. And in this overtaking movement, which has been going on from the earliest days of New Amsterdam, there have been left in the path of progress little cases of residences here and there, for example Washington Square and Murray Hill, and these have been, and still are, problems in themselves. "Beginning with the outlying sections let us see what the law has done. It has striven to fix things as they have naturally worked themselves out, namely, that streets and avenues already committed to business shall be business streets and residence streets shall be restricted to residence uses. There are, of course, numerous sections left un¬ restricted where the development is un¬ settled or already given over to mis¬ cellaneous and manufacturing uses. Under the law. houses can go anywhere, but factories, garages and stores must keep within the streets and avenues given over to them. The law is, how¬ ever, not retroactive. The Same Principles Apply. "Take, for example, the upper West Side known as Washington Heights. Here the law fixes present conditions. Broadway, Amsterdam and other im¬ portant avenues and business cross streets, like 145th street, are committed to business uses. Riverside drive and the cross streets generally are com¬ mitted to residence purposes. The law recognizes this natural development and permits it to continue. "This same principle can be applied to other sections all over the city. The law does not disturb their present status, but for the protection of this section, and the owners of property makes permanent this established condition. "The question of garages has perhaps caused more discussion than any other occupancy. The law seeks to place these in the unrestricted districts, but at the same time permits them in business streets where public garages or public stables already exist. There have been mnny petitions to the Board of Stand¬ ards and Appeals for additional garage permits and these have almost uni¬ formly, I believe, been granted after proper hearings, investigations and con¬ sents. An amendment to the law to establish just what is meant by a public garage and a public stable has been introduced, to establish these as build¬ ings for five automobiles and for five horses, respectively. There has also been an amendment proposed to open up for garages certain streets on the lower West Side now designated as busi¬ ness streets. These proposed amend¬ ments tend to show that in respect to garages, modifications of the law are to be expected, because people want public garages conveniently located. "The most important section of the city affected by the Zoning Resolution is the Central Mercantile District. As the New York Globe said editorially the other day, the rehabilitation of Sixth avenue near 23d street, which only a decade ago was the great retail center and which is now being redeveloped for wholesalers and factories, is the best endorsement that we could have of the Zoning Law. "This most recent vacating movement followed fortunately by the coming in of new tenants is typical of previous experiences of other sections, although some sections have not even yet recov¬ ered. The history of New York shows a continuous changing of trade centers. The retail center has, jump by jump, as transportation has developed and other causes have arisen, traveled from lower Broadway to its present location be¬ tween 34th street and Central Park. East and west it is now confined prac¬ tically between Sixth and Madison ave¬ nues. Without the Zoning Law no one knows what the next leap would have been, but that there would have been a leap is almost a certainty, because the factories were crowding up and into the retail section, repeating the old process and making it impossible, with the hordes of workers filling up the sidewalks at the noon hour. "Now, thanks to the law and to the 'Save New York' movement, these factories are returning to the sections south of the retail center, where they are permitted and where they are learning that it is for their best in¬ terests to go. The retail district is breathing more easily and is spread¬ ing out from the established center. It is now logically located almost in the center of Manhattan Island, be¬ tween the great New York Central Station on the east and the great Pennsylvania Station on the west, reached, as it is also from all parts of the city, by the subways, elevated and surface lines. Manufacturing in this section is, as you have learned, permitted, but only to a limited ex¬ tent, and every one is apparently satis¬ fied. "There have been several cases where owners have plots bordering partly on a business thoroughfare and partly in a resident street. The most interesting case where this condition has presented a problem is the Stein¬ way Piano Company case. Before the law was passed this concern con¬ tracted to buy a piece of ground in 57th street and 58th street, intended for their new salesroom and repair shops. After the law was passed they discovered that the building they pro¬ posed to erect would not be permitted on the entire plot for their type of occupancy, and the company is now being sued to enforce performance of the purchase contract. "It is also reported that Baron Astor RKCORD AND GUIDE IS IN ITS FIFTIET H YKAR QF CONTINVOVS PUBLICATION.