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Protecting the Future of
New York City
A PLEA FOR STRICTER REGULATIONS IN
CERTAIN MATTERS PENDING BEFORE THE
COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS AND
RESTRICTIONS, APRIL, 1916
Stated briefly, our criticism is that, with the possible
exception of Manhattan, your districting in its allow-
ance of height and area is so liberal as to fail to accom-
plish the results which your report, your entire atti-
tude and the frame work of your plans themselves
show that you wish to obtain.
• 1916•
The City Club of New York
55 West 44th StreetPROTECTING THE FUTURE OF NEW YORK
CITY
A Plea for Stricter Regulations in certain matters
pending before the Commission on Building
Districts and Restrictions
April, 1916.
New York City, through the work of the Commis-
sion on Building Districts and Restrictions, is attempt-
ing the biggest piece of city planning in America.
Both this Commission and the Board of Estimate
desire to go just as far in insuring better housing and
working conditions as the public opinion of the city
will permit.
Every citizen with the slightest vision wishes that
our city shall develop in the future in greater order
and stability; and with the insurance of sufficient light,
air, and street access in every part of the city where
present development does not preclude it.
Every citizen with the slightest intelligent concern
for the future of this city has a moral obligation to
make his influence felt at the present moment to at-
tain this object.
The Commission on Building Districts and Restric-
tions deserves the thanks of the entire city. Most of
its proposals are excellent so far as they go; but in a
number of important matters they do not go far
enough.
The deficiencies in the present proposals of the Com-
mission consist of far too liberal height limitations and
too liberal allowances as to the proportion of the lot
area which may be built upon.2
Most of the districts, particularly outside the Bor-
ough of Manhattan, in which the height of buildings
is permitted to be one and one-half times the width of
the street, should be reduced to once the width of the
street, or less.
Most of the so-called “C” districts and some of the
“B” districts should be made “D” districts, with the
more adequate limitations upon the use of the lot area
which are provided for in the “D” classification.
These criticisms should be read in connection with
the Tentative Report of the Commission on Building
Districts and Restrictions, dated March io, 1916, and
accompanying plans. Copies may be secured by writ-
ing to the Commission at 501 Municipal Building.
We earnestly urge you to communicate with the
Chairman and other members of the Commission on
Building Districts and Restrictions, the membership
of which is indicated on the last page of this pamphlet.
In a previous memorandum* we have urged the pre-
servation of our small parks as neighborhood centers
by restricting the streets surrounding such parks to
residential and public uses. The Park Commissioner
of Brooklyn and the City Club have filed with the
Commission surveys and suggestions regarding the
treatment of most of the small parks of the city; and
the Commission has already greatly increased the num-
ber of parks wholly or partially restricted for resi-
dential purposes.
The fuller accomplishment of this recommendation
is dependent upon the creation of a fourth class of re-
strictions for the use of buildings, which will pro-
vide for that very wide-spread combination of business
* A Plea for the Preservation of our Small Parks as Neighbor-
hood Centers, City Club of New York, 1916. Copies on request.3
and residence, which consists of shops and stores, with-
out manufacturing, on the ground floor and tenements
or apartments above. The establishment of this fourth
classification will enable the city to secure the fullest
possible protection of park surroundings with the least
possible detriment to property values. Your support
of this recommendation is earnestly urged.
We call your particular attention to Paragraphs 5-6;
9-10; 15-17 of the following memorandum, which more
fully explains the chief defects in the Commission's
present proposals:
April 11, 1916.
Commission on Building Districts and Restrictions:
Gentlemen:
1.	The City Club has already expressed its hearty
approval of the main purposes and principles under-
lying the work of your Commission in its districting
of this city as expressed in your tentative report, and
of the application of those principles in the various
boroughs as exhibited in your tentative resolutions and
the plans carrying them out. In a pioneer endeavor
of this magnitude and difficulty it would be most re-
markable if there were not mistakes which, if uncor-
rected, would most seriously mar the finished work. It
is because you fully realize this fact that in your many
public hearings and private conferences with regard
to this huge task you are devoting so much time and
such patient attention to criticisms and suggestions.
It seems to be the universal feeling that never has there
been a commission more hard-working, more patient,
more open-minded, or more fair.
2.	It is your hope and belief,—indeed the object for
which you are working,—that the district regulations
which you are drawing up and applying shall produce
in each of the individual districts of the city a type of4
development which, when once it has occurred, will of
itself render it difficult, if not impossible, to erect
types of buildings in these districts alien to that typi-
cal development; and therefore make it equally diffi-
cult or impossible to change the regulations under-
lying that development. For this reason any but
minor mistakes in these regulations at this time are
likely to be irreparable.
3.	We believe that there are mistakes in your tenta-
tive resolutions and plans; but that, fortunately, these
mistakes may be remedied, not by radical changes, but
partly by readjustments, partly by logical extensions
of your work along the lines already laid down by you.
The various detailed criticisms of what you have, in
general, so well done are, as we shall show, related
parts of a general criticism. That criticism, although
applying in different degrees to the districting in all
parts of our city, relates specially to its outlying por-
tions, where districting, seemingly easier, is really
quite as difficult as in a section already developed, and
much more effective and important. Our suggestions,
therefore, relate not so much to Manhattan as to the
other boroughs, including Brooklyn, which you are
now considering.
4.	We wish to express our admiration of your tenta-
tive resolutions and plans for districting this city ac-
cording to use. Little as we have to suggest in this
part of your undertaking, we do feel that our criticisms
may enable you to carry out this branch of your work
more in accord with the general principles you have
stated in your report.
5.	To provide for industry insofar as it is necessary
as an incident to business, you suggest that the em-
ployment for industrial purposes of (1) twenty-five
per cent., or (2) in any event two floors, of any build-
ing in a business district be permitted. Unquestion-
ably industry as such with its trucking, its street and
sidewalk congestion, its smoke and inevitable noises, is5
destructive of the essential characteristics and advan-
tages of business districts. We agree with you, how-
ever, that, as an incident to business, and to the ex-
tent to which it is incidental, industry must be ad-
mitted into these districts. We feel that the percent-
age of permissible industry which you have fixed as
incidental is too large and would permit great conges-
tion in business districts. Be that, however, as it may,
we think that to allow two floors of industry, no mat-
ter how low the building, is a grave mistake. In the
central portions of the city where buildings are high,
this provision would doubtless have little effect on
the type of building erected. In the outlying sections,
however, factories not perhaps exceeding two stories
are commercially possible, and there is no reason to
suppose that they would be temporary. Even if they
were temporary, they would hinder or lower the char-
acter of permanent improvements; if they were per-
manent, they would create a development totally dif-
ferent from that which your Commission in your wis-
dom has decided is most advantageous in the district;
or else produce that confusion and disorder which it is
one of the main purposes of districting by use to pre-
vent. In a word, instead of allowing incidental in-
dustry in your business districts, you have allowed in-
dustry there pure and simple to the exclusion of busi-
ness. Nor is this the most serious phase of the mat-
ter. Since the business districts are also districts
which will be used for residence by many of our citi-
zens of limited means, you have brought intensive in-
dustry with all its perils to health and life to the doors
of the class most needing protecting, because least
able to protect itself.
6. In allowing in all cases two floors of buildings in
business districts to be used for industry, your Com-
mission may have been influenced by the calculation
that as a rough average, the use of two floors for this
purpose in a low building of a given area would pro-
duce the same amount of street traffic and congestion6
as the use of twenty-five per cent, in this way in a high
building. In so far as the “two floor” provision would
produce the factory pure and simple, instead of per-
mitting merely industry incidental to business, it may
be doubted whether this is altogether correct. In any
event traffic is not the chief, much less the only con-
sideration, in districting. If the amount of land that
could be or has been tentatively devoted to industry
were insufficient for such use, there would be more rea-
son for this provision in spite of the confusion it in-
troduces in business districts. It is, however, the gen-
eral opinion that your Commission has been unable to
confine industry within areas sufficiently limited to
avoid those sudden changes which in the past have
done us such injury. We therefore ask you to recon-
sider this provision.
7.	In a former communication to your Commission
we have already advocated the creation of a fourth use
class,—that of shops on the ground floor, with resi-
dences above. The employment of this use class, al-
though it does not remove all the objections to the
“two floor” provision, of which we have just been
treating, would remove many people from its evil
effects. We have also heretofore urged upon you the
advisability of placing streets near small parks in the
residential use class. With this new classification you
will in many cases where it would be difficult to apply
the strictly residential classification, be able to accom-
plish much the same results. The plans which we have
filed with you, showing in detail the present use of
buildings near certain typical parks, and the printed
information of like nature with regard to many other
parks in the several boroughs which we have been glad
to furnish you, not only tends strongly to prove the
possibility and wisdom of this method of saving and
increasing the usefulness of our small parks, but also
the expediency of creating and employing this fourth
use class in many other parts of the city.
8.	Let us now turn to your tentative height and7
area limitations. Here again we are in general in
hearty accord with you. We feel, however, that here
also the failure to remedy certain defects, as may be
done without departure from the principles already
laid down by yourselves and your predecessors, the
Heights of Buildings Commission,—would entail grave
consequences to the city for all time to come.
9.	Stated briefly, our criticism is that, with the pos-
sible exception of Manhattan, your districting in its
allowance of height and area is s6 liberal as to fail to
accomplish the results which your report, your entire
attitude and the frame work of your plans themselves
show that you wish to obtain.
10.	Does not your treatment of Brooklyn clearly
illustrate the truth of this statement? For instance,
over large areas of Brooklyn you have allowed build-
ings to be constructed to a height equal to one and one-
half times the width of the streets on which they are
to be erected. On a typical 6o-foot street this is the
equivalent of eight or nine stories. But, with the
probable exception of the Heights, Park Slope, and
perhaps Eastern Parkway, and of course the Borough
Hall district, the waterfront and a few other indus-
trial districts, the present development in Brooklyn,—
always excepting terribly congested Williamsburg,
with its six stories,—is three- or four-story tenements,
or one- and two-family houses.
11.	It may be true,—indeed we are inclined to think
it is,—that height otherwise excessive may be allowed
if in compensation area is sufficiently limited. This,
which it would seem that your Commission intended to
do, you have not in fact accomplished. For instance,
but for Section 16 of your resolutions, which brings in
the existing tenement house area limitation of seventy
per cent., a five- or six-story building in a C district on
a 50x100 foot lot might occupy over seventy per cent,
of the lot, and an eight-story 8o-foot building only the8
fraction of a per cent, less than seventy. It is only,
therefore, in the case of the fireproof building above
eight stories, that your C provisions limit the total
area of residential buildings, and in the case of these
buildings, the limitation is slight. It must also be
remembered that it is not so much the well-to-do ten-
ant of the better class of building with his many com-
paratively large rooms that needs protection as the
poorer man in his five, or perhaps six, story walk up.
12.	Again:—In.your tentative report you say that
the D district “is intended generally for one- and two-
family houses, either singly or in rows. Apartments,
however, are not excluded but are handicapped by the
restrictions as to percentage of lot that may be occu-
pied and size of yards and courts.” This handicap, as
provided in your tentative resolutions, is altogether
too slight to accomplish the purpose intended. We
have calculated that in a D district a five-story tene-
ment may be built covering sixty per cent, of the lot,
accommodating with 560 square feet each twenty-five
families. In Brownsville and East New York, as you
know, structures four stories in height, covering sev-
enty per cent, of the lot, housing with 583 square feet
of floor space twenty-three families, are being con-
structed in great numbers. The differences between
the proposed and the Brownsville type are dangerously
small. If, therefore, there is any efficacy in, or need
of, districting and the creation of types of buildings in
different districts, and if your Commission desires to
accomplish what your tentative report states as your
purpose, you will be obliged greatly to change the D
provisions.
13.	What we have just stated with regard to C and
D districts, and previously with relation to height
limitations, was not intended to apply solely in those
connections, but to illustrate the amount and character
of amendment of your plans, which, after careful study
of the wealth of material which you have collected and9
charted, we so earnestly urge your Commission to
make.
14.	Change of the sort we urge involves, however,
as land becomes cheaper, and its present use less and
less intense, not only the strengthening of your height
and area provisions, all along the line and for all the
outlying boroughs, but some additions to and exten-
sions of them. This may be done simply by creating
districts of the same type as those already suggested,
but with severer height and area limitations. A bet-
ter method would be to establish a somewhat different
type of district suited to and made possible by the dif-
ferent conditions.
15.	The types of district which so far you have pro-
vided for are, on the whole, much better suited to Man-
hattan than anywhere else in the city. After the medi-
cal and engineering testimony which you received at
your hearing Thursday, March 30, you no doubt feel
the urgent need of tightening the restrictions with re-
gard also to Manhattan, if only you are able to see
how it may be done. Careful study will surely reveal
differences in development and land values sufficient
to enable you to rescue parts of upper Manhattan from
the B-iJ^ provisions to which you are about for all
time to condemn it. In any event, it seems evident
that your present regulations are suited to a typical
congested tenement house development such as will no
doubt prevail very extensively in Manhattan. We
believe that whatever may be true of Manhattan, such
regulations are not necessary in the other boroughs.
In Brooklyn, for instance, the single house is holding
its own, more land being developed with this type of
building each year than with tenements. That the
Heights of Buildings Commission believed in pro-
viding for rather than preventing types of building
other than that of the congested tenement is shown by
their suggesting in their report a district in which
height should be limited to 50 feet, and another in
which it should be restricted to 36 feet, at the streetIO
line. These were, of course, mere hints of districts
and not fully developed districting provisions; but they
at least indicate the point of view that we believe
should, and in reality does, prevail in your Commis-
sion. There is much cheap land in this great city;
there are enormous areas in it which, fortunately, are
still undeveloped. There, at least, we can still not only
permit but aid our people to do pleasant things, and
do them in their own way. There, it is still possible
to give people more freedom in the use of their land
than seems to have been feasible in the parts subjected
to minute codes for areas congested with endless tene-
ments, all much alike. It has been done elsewhere
under similar conditions. In Forest Hills, Boston, for
instance, are to be found three-story buildings, cover-
ing not more than twenty-five per cent, of the lot, fur-
nishing light, air, view, gardens, tennis courts and rec-
reation space of many kinds to all the tenants at a
moderate cost. Might not the giving to a land owner
of the option in these outlying districts to go up higher
than some low limit like 36 feet, if he covered a less
proportion of his lot, be one of the many ways which
study will reveal of accomplishing a variety of results
somewhat like these, if your Commission desires them?
In a later memorandum we may be able ourselves to
suggest other methods of limiting height and area in
most parts of the city which will allow the builder
greater freedom without endangering the public wel-
fare. Here, however, as elsewhere, it is in the skill,
industry and wisdom of your Commission that we are
glad to trust.
16. To what we have urged in the districting of this
city as to height and area, your tentative report con-
tained but one answer, and that is the implication to be
found in many parts of it. that land the same time
distance by the new dual transit system from City
Hall should receive the same districting provisions.
With any such principle we most emphatically dis-
agree. No such principle, so far as we are aware, has
even been suggested before in the history of district-II
ing. The true principle, we believe, was stated by the
Heights of Buildings Commission in the chapter of its
report entitled “Conclusions and Recommendations/’*
as follows:
“Profiting by past experience, we can do much
to safeguard the future. We can prevent the repe-
tition all over the city of conditions and evils now
confined to comparatively limited areas. Regula-
tions, however, must be carefully devised so as
not to interfere unduly with existing property
values.”*}*
“The Commission believes that any complete
system of height and court restriction necessitates
the application of different regulations to different
parts of the city. The city should be divided into
districts, and the restrictions for each district
worked out with reference to the peculiar needs
and requirements of that particular district * * *
The blanket restrictions which we have recom-
mended for immediate adoption have, as a matter
of fact, been devised with reference to the needs
of the downtown office and financial district—
the area of maximum congestion. They have been
worked out with a view of securing as much light,
air, relief from congestion and safety from fire as
is consistent with a proper regard for business re-
quirements and existing land values in this area
of maximum congestion * * * We believe that
the needs of each district should be studied in the
same way that we have studied the central office
and financial district and restrictions worked out
that will best serve the peculiar needs of each dis-
trict.”:]:
17. It is this principle of height and area restriction
so stated by the Heights of Buildings Commission as
the result of their investigation and deliberation,—the
principle of the greatest protection against growing
*Chap. VI. fib., p. 56. tChap. VI, p. 66.12
and spreading congestion that is consistent with due
regard for existing conditions and values, the princi-
ple that you have more nearly followed in Manhattan
than elsewhere,—which we urge you to follow in
Brooklyn and the other outlying boroughs. Instead,
you are permitting eight and nine stories where three
or four now prevail; and the crowded Brownsville
tenement where the one- and two-family house is now
being built, or development has hardly begun; thus
allowing at the very outer limits of our great city the
typical central Berlin tenement.
18.	It may be said that Manhattan congestion is nec-
essary within Manhattan distances from City Hall in
order to provide housing within the five-cent transit
limit by the new dual subway and elevated system for
access to City Hall and its environs. To this there are
many answers. There is a vast area still available in
Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx. Surface cars and
transfers will provide transportation to these areas as
need for them gradually arises. Better still, decen-
tralization of industries essential for so many reasons
will develop subsidiary centers. Much of Jersey is
still near; or, if local patriotism forbids such a sugges-
tion, Staten Island, almost unoccupied and large
enough to hold all New York City, can be brought by
subway within twelve minutes of City Hall. Even
the land speculator should know by this time that the
greedy do not always become rich. If the skyscraper
does not pay, why should the use of an excessive pro-
portion of the lot continue to do so in these days when
we are beginning to demand light, air, sun and space
for outdoor life?
19.	These are the principles which with earnestness
and full conviction we urge you to follow. For the
putting of these principles into effect, we make the fol-
lowing recommendations:
(a) The establishment of a fourth use class, to con-13
sist of shops, without industry, on the ground
floor, with residences above.
(b)	The application of the residential classification,
or the fourth use classification, to streets in
the neighborhood of parks, especially the
smaller ones.
(c)	The study of the needs of the small park as a
neighborhood center. For instance, the large
theatre should be excluded, but not the neigh-
borhood theatre; all the minor public build-
ings, too, should be allowed.
(d)	The further study of the problem of the garage,
so unpleasant and dangerous near residences,
and so destructive of business values on the
block front on which it is situated; with a
view to excluding the garage so far as possible
from these neighborhoods.
(e)	The abolition of the “two floor” provision with
regard to incidental industry in business dis-
tricts ; and the change of the twenty-five per-
centage to a lesser proportion.
(f)	In outlying A districts surrounded by C or D
districts (in so far as such conditions are
actually recommended by you), the provision
that residences instead of being subject to B
provisions should be governed by C or D
regulations; such fact being appropriately in-
dicated by a double letter designation of the
district, such as AC or AD.
(g)	A restudy of upper Manhattan with a view to
the establishment of C or D area districts,
and “one time” height districts.
(h)	The elimination of C districts in Brooklyn,
Queens, Richmond, and perhaps The Bronx.
The substitution of D districts for most of14
the B and much of the C districts. The estab-
lishment and employment in the remaining
parts of these boroughs of districts more re-
stricted than D, or of other types of district,
with options and generally greater freedom to
the land owner in the use of his land.
(i)% A change in the height regulation in all the bor-
oughs except Manhattan, so that most of the
territory in “one and one-half times” districts.
shall be limited to a less height, either the
“one times” or a stricter limitation. The
stricter limitation of parts of the “one times”
districts. The establishment for application
to outlying territory of other types of district,
with options and generally greater freedom to
the land owner in the use of his land.
Yours truly,
FRANK B. WILLIAMS, Chairman,
Committee on City Planning:COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS AND
RESTRICTIONS OF THE CITY OF
NEW YORK
Edward M. Bassett, Chairman
Lawson Purdy, Vice-Chairman
Robert H. Whitten, Secretary
Edward C. Blum
James E. Clonin
Otto M. Eidlitz
Burt L. Fenner
Edward R. Hardy
Richard W. Lawrence
Alrick H. Man
Alfred E. Marling
George T. Mortimer
J. F. Smith
Walter Stabler
Franklin S. Tomlin
George C. Whipple
William G. Willcox
Room 501, Municipal Building