94 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



garden space; (2) the land given up for streets, and (3) the cost of 

 local improvements, consisting of pavement, sidewalk, sewer, water- 

 main, etc., where these are provided. In a country like Canada the 

 cost of the bare land ought not to be a serious matter, and, where it 

 is forced up in value by speculation, as it now is, it ought to be con- 

 trolled by legislation. The portion of the above cost, however, which 

 seems to require most careful consideration on the part of engineers 

 and administrators is that which is spent on local improvements. 



In one English town the cost of the street, including the sewer, 

 works out in an average case at less than $100 for a small workman's 

 dwelling, costing say $1,000 to construct. This includes con- 

 crete or stone slab sidewalks and a pavement with a finished surface 

 of bituminous materials. The cost per lineal foot-run for a first class 

 street forty-five feet wide in this town is from $8 to $12.50. 

 As typical houses for labourers occupy only about 15 feet frontage, 

 the cost per house is thus $60 to $93.75. In Canada houses have 

 wider frontages and face wider streets than in England, and for a 

 house with 25 feet frontage on a street 66 feet wide the cost for local 

 improvements when constructed would be from $16 to $24 per lineal 

 foot, or from $200 to $300 per house. By limiting the number of 

 houses that may be erected on each acre to twelve, giving them a 

 frontage of 25 feet on a street 26 feet wide, instead of 36 houses to the 

 acre, with a frontage of 15 feet on a road 45 feet wide, and dispensing 

 with rear alleys, it has been found in England that nearly three times 

 the area round each house can be obtained at no greater cost per 

 house for road construction. Thus the narrow street enables the house 

 to have more instead of less air space. The above 26-foot road, con- 

 sisting of 18 feet pavement and two 4-foot sidewalks, is regarded as 

 adequate for purely domestic streets not required for through traf- 

 fic, and the buildings have all to be set back 15 feet from the boun- 

 dary of the street, thus securing a minimum distance of 56 feet be- 

 tween all buildings. This is for a purely working class district. 



Having regard to the importance of designing streets on which 

 workmen's dwellings are erected, so as to secure the utmost economy, 

 it would be well for Canadian municipalities to consider whether 

 narrower and better constructed domestic streets, and fewer streets 

 with deeper building lots, accompanied by regulations limiting the 

 density of buildings and the widths between the building lines, would 

 not be better than the wildernesses of bare dusty road and the shal- 

 low sub-divisions that are the result of the present policy. It may 

 be open to question whether roads should in any circumstances be 

 made as narrow as 26 feet, but, as the by-law width in Ontario is 

 66 feet, as against 45 feet in the above instance, the proportionate 



