CHAPTER IV— APPROPRIATE INTENSITY OF THE USE 

 OF LAND 



For city building it is not alone necessary that there shall be a plan 

 that will segregate buildings according to use, but it is also necessary that 

 there shall be a segregation according to intensity of building development. 

 This is essential in order to secure to each section of the city as much 

 light, air, safety from fire and relief from congestion, with all its attendant 

 evils, as is consistent with the most beneficial use of the land. Intensity 

 of use should be so regulated that assuming that the entire section should 

 be built up uniformly with buildings of the maximum height and extent 

 allowed the section as a whole would be appropriately improved. 



The maximum beneficial use of any given block or area is dependent 

 on a certain measure of uniformity in its development as regards height, 

 yards and open spaces. Such use would, in general, be enhanced if the 

 property owners could enter into an agreement uniformly restricting the 

 height of buildings and fixing the minimum area of courts and yards. The 

 size of courts and yards is in most cases of as much benefit to a man's 

 neighbors as to himself. It is therefore appropriate that each should con- 

 tribute in substantial equality to the common stock of light and air. There 

 can be no maintenance of healthful conditions of light and air and no 

 stability of values if each individual owner is at liberty to build to any height 

 and over any proportion of his lot without regard to his appropriate and 

 reasonable contribution to the light and air of the block. 



The speculative builder puts up the first high building in a block. The 

 windows are on property lines or on narrow courts. Perhaps a five-foot 

 rear yard is provided. But with all the free space on the adjacent lots the 

 building is light and airy, is attractive to tenants and shows a good return 

 to the purchaser. Other buildings follow and their builders see no reason 

 why they should keep down lower or provide larger yards or courts than 

 the first. The result is tragic from either a private or a public point of view. 



All this has been conclusively demonstrated by costly experience in the 

 recent history of the office and loft building sections of Manhattan. Whole 

 areas have been built up piecemeal with towering buildings having inadequate 

 courts and yards without much thought of ultimate consequences. Such 

 areas are in process of being smothered by their own growth. The streets 

 are inadequate to handle the traffic induced by the multiplication of floor 

 area to be served, and the buildings constructed without reference to the 

 width of the streets, yards and courts on which they abut shut out light 

 and air essential to health and to rental on a basis that will permit of a 

 reasonable return on the investment. 



The social and economic desirability of limited height and minimum 

 court and yard provisions has been clearly established by apartment house 

 construction under the Tenement House Law. Had similar regulations 



