168 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRICTS 



those best informed, and on the rental values obtained in buildings within a 

 few hundred yards, which were more than twenty stories high, and still 

 can steal light and air from their neighbors, that nevertheless, such a land 

 value was a mirage and an illusion ; that no use to which the land could be 

 put would yield a return of four per cent on such a value. There are 

 many such cases and I describe this in detail to illustrate what I 'call a fic- 

 titious value that comes to land based on the erroneous theory that all 

 land in a given neighborhood can be put to as an intensive use as the 

 most intensively used land. And again we come back to the proposition that 

 no building should be permitted which would not serve as a suitable type 

 for the development of the entire area appropriate for such buildings. 1 

 have known a number of cases where office buildings, when first erected, 

 were profitable, and subsequently they were hemmed in by other buildings 

 to such an extent that the rentals were seriously reduced on account of the 

 lack of light and air. I have in mind a building on the corner of two streets, 

 which for some years enjoyed the light and air that belonged to its neigh- 

 bors on the south for about sixteen stories of its height. It also had a 

 similar advantage on the east. A few years ago an office building of equal 

 height, about twenty-two stories, was erected south and east of it, and 

 the owner thereupon requested a reduction of the assessed value and made 

 the allegation that as to a large percentage of the rooms having windows 

 to the south and east the rent was reduced by two-thirds, because the 

 windows were in most cases entirely closed up, and in others the windows 

 were on a court, to small to give any light and ventilation to amount to 

 anything below three stories from the roof. I knew the building in its 

 condition prior to the erection of the building adjoining and I know it well 

 now, and if it were not for very good management I can hardly see how the 

 southerly rooms could be rented for anything but storage. 



Effect of Equitable Building on surrounding property values 



A notable illustration of the evil effect of the erection of a building 

 that is too high and covers too much of the land is that of the new Equitable 

 Building, at Broadway, Pine and Cedar streets. After the old Equitable 

 Building was destroyed, the owners of some of the land that surrounds 

 that block negotiated with the Equitable for the purchase of an easement of 

 the light and air from a point above eight stories from the ground ; in 

 other words for a limitation upon the Equitable to the construction of a 

 building eight stories high. I am informed that for two and a half million 

 dollars the Equitable Corporation was willing to sell such an easement and 

 that the owners of the surrounding property subscribed two and one-quarter 

 million dollars to buy that easement. The project failed because the owners 

 who would have been required to contribute the additional quarter of a 

 million were not in a favorable position to make their proportionate con- 

 tribution and were unable or unwilling to do so. One of the owners who had 

 agreed to contribute a large part of the sum required told me that he 

 regarded the advantage to the property that he represented as being at least 

 twice as valuable as the sum he had agreed to contribute. 



Since the commencement of the present Equitable Building, a structure 

 about forty stories high, the owners of practically all the property sur- 

 rounding it have asked for and obtained a reduction of the assessed value 

 of their property on proof of loss of rents due to limitations of light and 

 air and other advantages they enjoyed when the Equitable Building was 

 only nine stories high. 



