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REAL ESTATE
AND
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 5,*1914
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I CITY PLANNING IN NEW YORK CITY
The City Controling Its Own Destinies—A Recent Charter
Amendment Has Placed the Movement Under Official Auspices
I
1„„,
By GEORGE B. FORD* 1
I
THE City of New York has officially
recognized city planning. In fact,
city planning work has become an
integral part of the city government. A
little over a year and a half a,go, in
March, 1913, Hon. George McAneny,
then President of the Borough of Man¬
hattan, took the first official step toward
the recognition of city planning by the
appointment of a commission of nine¬
teen citizens to advise with the Bo^rd of
Estimate and Apportionment on the
regulation of the height, size and ar¬
rangement of buildings.
They presented suggestions for an or¬
dinance limiting the maximum height
of all buildin.gs. This is now before the
Board of Aldermen. Furthermore, they
urgently recommended two amendments
to the Charter of the City of New York.
One of these charter amendments grant¬
ed the Board of Estimate and Appor¬
tionment the power to district the city
by different height and area regulations
in different parts of the city, and the
other amendment allowed them to dis¬
trict the city according to use of prop¬
erty. These amendments also provided
that the Board of Estimate and Appor¬
tionment should appoint an advisory
cominission of citizens who would study
the subject in detail, hold conferences
and hearings, and report back to the
Board of Estimate and Apportionment
a plan for their consideration. These
two amendments passed the Legislature
at Albany and became a law in May,
1914.
Inception of the Movement.
Meanwhile, when the new administra¬
tion of New York came into power on
January 1, 1914, Mr. McAneny, now
President of the Board of Aldermen of
New York, recommended that one of
the standing committees of the Board
of Estimate and Apportionment be a
committee on the City Plan and that all
larger matters which affected the map
of the city, other than those relating to
transit and port and terminal facilities,
should be referred to this committee.
It consists of Mr. McAneny, as chair¬
man, and the five borough presidents as
members.
Each of the five Borough Presidents
has had since 1902 a topographical
bureau in his own borough, and all mat¬
ters of purely local improvement, or
changes in the map of the borough, have
been worked out and passed upon by the
local bureau. Furthermore, the Board
of Estimate and Apportionment has had
s'nce the consolidation of the city a
Bureau of Improvements in charge of
Nelson P. Lewis as chief engineer. He
passes upon all the local improvements
from the standpoint of the interest of
the whole city and presents a plan for
the distribution of the paying for the
work. In addition, he has developed a
broad plan of general thoroughfares for
the whole city.
*CnnsuUant to the Committee on City Plan of
the Board of Estimate.—Paper read at the annual
meeting of the American Civic Association, at
Washington, December 2.
All of the above bureaus continue, but
now all the more important improve¬
ments which are of more than local
character are referred to the new com¬
mittee on the City Plan. This com¬
mittee has offices in the Municipal Build¬
ing, where a staff is employed on its
work with Robert H. Whitten, formerly
librarian-statistician of the Public Serv¬
ice Commission, as secretary, and
George B. Ford, secretary of the
Heights of Buildings Commission of
1913, as its consultant.
Under the authority granted it by the
charter amendments, the Board of Esti¬
mate and Apportionment appointed a
commission called the Commission on
Building Districts' and Restrictions.
This commission of sixteen members, of
which Edward M. Bassett is the chair¬
man, is the direct successor of thc
Heights of Buildings" Commission of
1913, and its function is to continue the
program of the former-commission. An
appropriation has been put at its dis¬
posal and when it has reached definite
conclusions, it is to report back to the
Committee on the City Plan of the
Board of Estimate and Apportionment.
Meanwhile the latter committee has
placed at the disposal of the commission
its staff and rooms and material in the
Municipal Building.
The New Advisory Commission.
The Committee on the City Plan has
also appointed an advisory commission
of twenty-four members, which is known
as the Advisory Commission on City
Planning. Charles D. Norton, who
took a prominent part in the working up
of the great plans for Chicago under
the auspices of the Commercial Club
there, is the chairman of this commis¬
sion, and Frederic B. Pratt, of Brook¬
lyn, who has been chairman for a num¬
ber of years of the City Planning Com¬
mittee of Brooklyn, is vice-chairman.
The functions of this commission are
to consider and rep^ort back to the Com¬
mittee on City Plan on such matters as
the latter committee may refer to them
and also the commission is at liberty to
consider and report upon such other
city, plannin.g matters as it believes
should be brou,ght to the attention of the
Committee on the City Plan. In other
words, it is free to do creative city plan¬
ning work.
,As in the case of the Commission on
Building Districts and Restrictions, the
Committee on the City Plan has put its
offices and staff at the disposal of the
Advisory Commission on City Planning.
Tendencies of City Growth.
Aside from the routine work, which is
comin.g up constantlv before the Com¬
mittee on the City Plan of the Board of
Estimate and Apportionment, the staff
is devoting most of its attention to the
collection and presentation in graphic
form of fundamental data showing the
tendencies of growth of the city. For
example, they are taking the population
data from the censuses of 1910, 1905.
1900 and 1895. in as small units as they
exist, and are showing upon compara¬
tive maps by dots and otherwise the
distribution of population at these
periods with a view to showing the ten¬
dencies' of change and growth.
On a corresponding series of maps
they are showing from data obtained
from real estate and insurance atlases of
the city at dififerent periods the trend of
distribution of buildings by dififerent
kinds of use and size throughout the
city. Again they are showing the dis¬
tribution of transit and transportation
facilities at periods corresponding to
those of the building and population
data with a view to showing the efifect
of transit on the growth of the city.
Again, they are making complete time
zone and fare zone maps of the city to
show the effect of the distance and the
time people have to travel and the fare
they have to pay on the character of
development in any given district.
Again, they are showing the distribu¬
tion of property values throughout the
city on a series of maps based upon the
assessed valuation per foot of property
and, in conjunction with this, they are
showing the relative value of improve¬
ments as compared with value of land
in dififerent parts of the city.
They are also showing the distribu¬
tion of factories of different kinds and
the distribution of the working or day
population of the city from data se¬
cured from the Department of Labor.
They are also showing the distribution
and intensity of use of the various
waterfront and terminal facilities of the
city, and the facilities for the transpor¬
tation of goods.
Again they are showing on a series
of maps the distribution of buildings
throughout the city by height; the dis¬
tribution by percentage of lot occupied,
and the distribution by character of
construction.
Usefulness of the Data.
It is felt that the preparation of data
such as the above is of the greatest use
not only to the Commission on Building
Districts and Restrictions and the Ad¬
visory Commission on City Planning,
but to a number of the other depart¬
ments of the city in connection with the
extension of their systems or work, and
also to all such citizens or citizen bodies
as are brought into contact with prob¬
lems which are dependent on a knowl¬
edge of the tendencies of growth of the
city.
In closing, I wish to say a word about
the character of the above three com¬
missions. In each case the members of
these commissions are men of reco,g-
nized standing, leaders and authorities
in their respective lines. The commis¬
sions were intentionally made large,
partly so that- there could be represen¬
tatives upon them from each of the five
boroughs of the city and partly so that
all of the leading types of professions
and business and points of view could
be amply represented.
The appointment of these commis- â–
sions has been justified, for, at almost
no expense to itself, the city has been
and is securing the best thought and
time of a number of its leading citizens.