This morning, I was researching the first Victory Memorial Grove in Elysian Park when I stumbled across several documents related to the history of zoning. I was struck by their clarity as to why zoning is so important when living in a crowded city like New York or Los Angeles. Zoning laws were enacted to promote and protect the ownership of single-family homes, a hallmark of the American dream.
Today, in response to the perceived housing shortage, zoning laws are being weaponized, resulting in the destruction of the very homes the law was intended to protect. Both single family homes and multi-family homes such as duplexes and bungalow courts (many of which are under rent control) are being torn down to make way for high-density housing. Little of this new housing is truly affordable. Tenants are being forced out under the false premise that developers can solve the supply shortage if only given enough incentive. Sadly, the incentive is never enough.
I’ve talked about the history of zoning in Los Angeles in a prior three-part post. Today, I want to dig a little deeper into the earliest days of zoning. Why were zoning laws enacted? What was the intent of zoning and what were the problems being addressed? Prior to zoning regulations, what means of protection were available and why was zoning the preferred approach? My hope is that armed with this information one can better see how current actions intended to increase the supply of housing may be misguided and counterproductive.
Since I’m no expert in the subject matter (just opinionated), I’ll turn to two experts in the field. The first talk, “What Zoning Means,” is by Lawson Purdy. Mr. Purdy is the President of the National Municipal League. The second talk, “Ten Years of Zoning,” is by Edward M. Bassett. Mr. Bassett is the President of the Zoning Commission of New York. Let’s give them both a warm welcome.
WHAT ZONING MEANS
By Lawson Purdy1
The term "zoning" has come to be used to mean the regulation of buildings in a city. It signifies such regulation of the height , area, and use of buildings as will protect each landowner from the impairment of his share of light and access, as will protect his ears from unseemly noises, his nose from unpleasant smells, and his eyes from offensive sights.
Proper protection of the owner in these respects enhances the value of his land and conserves the value of his building. Owners cannot have such protection for themselves without conceding the like protection for their neighbors. Appropriate regulation demands such rules that no parcel of land in the city can be used in such fashion that all similar land could not be improved with buildings of like kind without disadvantage to each and all of them. This is only common fairness , corporate equality.
Each street will accommodate a certain amount of traffic, pedestrian and vehicular. Each lot of land on that street is entitled to its proportionate share of access along the street. The welfare of each owner demands that no one owner shall make greater use of the street than the size of his lot entitles him to have. There is a direct relation between the facilities afforded by the street for traffic and the light and air furnished by the street. If the buildings are too high for the width of the street , light is cut off, and, at the same time, traffic is congested.
In every city there is a tendency for business and industries of like kind to group together. This is for their own good. If a manufacturing industry is intruded into a business or residential neighborhood, it impairs the value of all the surrounding property. There has been annually in the United States a greater destruction of the value of buildings by the failure to protect them from the improper use of neighboring buildings than is caused by fire. One manufactory erected on a business block may easily destroy several million dollars' worth of neighboring buildings. One garage on a residential block may destroy hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of residences. High buildings have been erected that cut the rent roll of their neighbors in half.
Unfortunately, in every city some buildings are too high, cover too large a percentage of the lot, and are put to a wrong use. Zoning must proceed on the basis of existing conditions. Even the worst sections can be improved somewhat; some sections may be saved; new sections may be protected at the beginning of their development. In general, buildings in new sections should never be allowed to be higher than the width of the street. No building for human habitation in a new section should be allowed to cover more than 50 per cent of the land. Single family dwellings may be protected by not being permitted to cover more than 30 per cent of the land.
Towers are not objectionable and may be unlimited in height if sufficiently restricted in area. The New York ordinance permits a tower which does not cover more than 25 per cent of the lot and which observes certain other regulations. As a general rule , a greater height may be permitted back of the building line so long as the same angle of light is maintained as is permitted on the street in question. Thus, if a building is allowed to be one and one-half times as high as the street is wide, it may be built higher if set back from the building line. For every foot of set-back it may ascend one and one- half feet.
Zoning, properly conceived and carried out, thus constitutes not only a definite recognition of equality in ownership, but an important protection of taxable values.
TEN YEARS OF ZONING
By Edward M. Bassett2
In 1916 the first zoning law in this country went into effect. It was devised and adopted by Greater New York. Since that time zoning has spread to more than five hundred municipalities of the United States. Before 1916 in every city, including Greater New York, factories could be constructed in any residence or retail business district. Noise, smoke , fumes and heavy trucking blighted the surrounding area.
Before 1916 a public garage or stable could locate next door to any home, apartment, or local store. This was a particular hardship to the small homeowner who was striving to pay off an installment second mortgage and who all of a sudden saw the new garage or stable lessen the value of his home so that his equity was annihilated. The new public garage or stable next to the established drug store or jewelry shop would drive away customers. The good-will of the small storekeeper would be destroyed.
Before 1916 the striker could buy a strategic lot in a home neighborhood, obtain a permit for some injurious building and then sell out at a high price to the neighbors who had no other way of protecting themselves. Before 1916 the out-of-place grocery could seize any residential corner, pushing its plate glass front out to the street line and cutting off the front lawns of the small homes already built. If the grocer succeeded, a butcher and delicatessen shop pre-empted the other corners. Then the neighborhood began to decline, having lost its distinctive residential character.
Before 1916 every detached house district was insecure. In proportion as the attractiveness of such a locality increased, apartments came in. The protection of E and F districts was unknown. Families desiring to establish permanent private homes migrated to country districts in New Jersey, Westchester or Nassau County.
In some cases private restrictions retarded these invasions. But private restrictions were seldom applied to protect business or apartment house districts or the home localities of people of small means. Even in the highest class residential developments the restrictions would expire in fifteen or twenty years, after which the invasion would come with even greater speed. Homes would be allowed to run down so that they could be destroyed without loss as soon as the private restrictions expired. Every homeowner was compelled to start an injunction suit on the slightest violation of the restrictions, otherwise the courts would say that the restrictions had been allowed to lapse. The zoning regulations, however, are permanent until the property owners themselves petition to change them. The building departments of the boroughs enforce them by refusing permits for non-conforming buildings or uses.
Before 1916 skyscrapers could cover the entire lot and extend to any height desired. Enormous cornices would further darken the canyon streets. No law required the division of light and air with one's neighbors, but the first skyscraper appropriated all there was. The zoning resolution began the new era of skyscraper architecture-pyramid buildings instead of buildings like packing boxes set on end. The new type of high buildings has already become a predominating feature of uptown Manhattan. Streets are lighter and more attractive.
The first ten years of zoning in this city have established its usefulness. The next ten years should make it a better instrument to prevent congestion.
IN CLOSING
I hope you found this trip back in time interesting. So very often we hear about a given law or regulatory process that creates a problem, and the knee jerk reaction is to throw it all out and start over. Little effort is made to understand the reasons why the original program was adopted, or how many elements of the program could be improved via minor modification.
No program is perfect, but the massive upzoning now underway (via community plans and state bonus density) is severely disrupting our communities in the very ways that zoning was enacted to avoid. And I doubt we want to, or could, return to an era in which allowable building was dictated through deed restrictions. Such an unlevel playing field resulted in racial covenants, a practice that belongs on the scrap heap of history. Only through fair, equitable, and practical zoning can we avoid the major disruptions now occuring and build better communities for all.
From an article appearing in Civic Comment, No. 2, dated 16 June 1919 and published by the American Civic Association, Washington DC.
From an article appearing in Civic Comment, No. 13, dated 1 December 1926 and published by the American Civic Association, Washington DC.