RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 205 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



changes, but partly by readjustments, partly by logical extensions of your 

 work along the lines already laid down by you. The various detailed 

 criticisms of what you have, in general, so well done are, as we shall show, 

 related parts of a general criticism. That criticism, although applying in 

 different degrees to the districting in all parts of our city, relates specially 

 to its outlying portions, where districting, seemingly easier, is really quite 

 as difficult as in a section already developed, and much more effective and 

 important. Our suggestions, therefore, relate not so much to Manhattan 

 as to the other boroughs. 



We wish to express our admiration of your tentative resolutions and 

 plans for districting this city according to use. Little as we have to suggest 

 in this part of your undertaking, we do feel that our criticisms may enable 

 you to carry out this branch of your work more in accord with the general 

 principles you have stated in your report. 



Exclusion of industry from business districts 



To provide for industry in so far as it is necessary as an incident to 

 business, you suggest that the employment for industrial purposes of (1) 

 twenty-five per cent., or (2) in any event two floors of any building in a 

 business district; be permitted. Unquestionably industry as such with its 

 trucking, its street and sidewalk congestion, its smoke and inevitable noises, 

 is destructive of the essential characteristics and advantages of business 

 districts. We agree with you, however, that, as an incident to business, 

 and to the extent to which it is incidental, industry must be admitted into 

 these districts. We feel that the percentage of permissible industry which 

 you have fixed as incidental is too large and would permit great congestion 

 in business districts. Be that, however, as it may, we think that to allow 

 two floors of industry, no matter how low the building, is a grave mistake. 

 In the central portions of the city where buildings are high, this provision 

 would doubtless have little effect on the type of buildings erected. In the 

 outlying sections, however, factories not perhaps exceeding two stories are 

 commercially possible, and there is no reason to suppose that they would 

 be temporary. Even if they were temporary, they would hinder or lower 

 the character of permanent improvements ; if they were permanent, they 

 would create a development totally different from that which your Com- 

 mission in your wisdom has decided is most advantageous in the district ; 

 or else produce that confusion and disorder which it is one of the main 

 purposes of districting by use to prevent. In a word, instead of allowing 

 incidental industry in your business districts, you have allowed industry 

 there pure and simple to the exclusion of business. Nor is this the most 

 serious phase of the matter. Since the business districts are also districts 

 which will be used for residence by many of our citizens of limited means, 

 you have brought intensive industry with all its perils to health and life to 

 the doors of the class most needing protection, because least able to protect 

 itself. 



In allowing in all cases two floors of buildings in business districts to 

 be used for industry, your Commission may have been influenced by the 

 calculation that as a rough average, the use of two floors for this purpose 

 in a low building of a given area would produce the same amount of street 

 traffic and congestion as the use of twenty-five per cent in this way in a 

 high building. In so far as the " two-floor " provision would produce the 

 factory pure and simple, instead of permitting merely industry incidental 

 to business, it may be doubted whether this is altogether correct. In any 



