82 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS 



Safeguarding of parks 



As to whether the particular regulations proposed go far enough, we 

 would like to reserve our opinion for the present. We are inclined to be- 

 lieve that certain of the restrictions should be substantially increased, where 

 present developments do not seem to block the way. In this connection, 

 we would urge particularly a more careful safeguarding and regulation of 

 property surrounding parks, and especially small parks, which find their 

 highest values as residential neighborhood centers. 



Aesthetic considerations 



This society greatly regrets that the present constitutional situation 

 prevents the Commission from giving weight to aesthetic considerations, 

 and that the proposals are necessarily based wholly upon considerations of 

 public health, order, convenience, and the stabilizing of property values. 

 This society recognizes, however, that the introduction of orderly develop- 

 ment in place of the present chaos will have a tendency to improve the 

 appearance of the city, both directly and indirectly, and that to that extent 

 the proposed system is better than the existing lack of system also from the 

 aesthetic point of view. We think it, however, a great misfortune that the 

 city is not in a legal position to make a direct attempt to conserve aesthetic 

 values in places of exceptional beauty like Riverside Drive, the neighbor- 

 hood of parks and the like, where aesthetic values are in fact large factors 

 in the desirability of the locality. But we recognize that that effort must 

 wait. Americans generally are far behind many other nations in realizing 

 the value of beauty as a municipal asset expressible in dollars, to say 

 nothing of its daily contribution to the happiness of the citizen. , 



Statement by Edward M. Bassett, May 31, 1916 

 Ineffectiveness of restrictive covenants 



The history of private contractual restrictions in the State of New 

 York has not been such as to warrant the hope of permanent help there- 

 from. Private restrictions are effectual only between the landowners who 

 enter into such covenants with one another, or, as is more usually the case, 

 the owner of a considerable tract of land will sell portions subject to restric- 

 tions enumerated in the deeds. In the latter case the covenants run with 

 the land, as between owners who derive their title from the same source 

 that imposes the restriction. 



These restrictions have usually been imposed to preserve localities from 

 nuisances, or from the invasion of business of any sort in residential locali- 

 ties; to prevent the invasion of industry and business in residential localities; 

 to prevent the sale of liquor, and more latterly to insure the permanence of 

 private residence neighborhoods, in some cases requiring detached resi- 

 dences. In developments that are intended to be for high-class residence 

 only, there have sometimes been restrictions requiring set-backs, and one- 

 familv detached residences of a cost not less than a certain amount. 

 Restrictions against flat roofs have been common. 



Restrictions imposed in Kings and Queens Counties thirty-five or forty 

 years ago were often put into the form of conditions ; for instance, a deed 

 would provide that the land was conveyed on the condition that liquor 

 should never be sold on the premises, or that the premises should never be 

 used for business. As the violation of a condition is forfeiture, these con- 

 ditions rendered land almost unsaleable. After the title companies began 

 their work, they, as a rule, required the release of these conditions, or their 



