This article was downloaded by: [CDL Journals Account] On: 5 January 2009 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 785022367] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of the American Planning Association Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t782043358 The Metropolitan Dimension of Early Zoning: Revisiting the 1916 New York City Ordinance Raphael Fischler Online Publication Date: 30 June 1998 To cite this Article Fischler, Raphael(1998)'The Metropolitan Dimension of Early Zoning: Revisiting the 1916 New York City Ordinance',Journal of the American Planning Association,64:2,170 — 188 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/01944369808975974 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01944369808975974 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. The Metropolitan Dimension of Early Zoning Revisiting the 191 6 New York City Ordinance I J I Raphael Fischler ertain facts seem beyond dispute. On July 25, 1916, the New York The first comprehensive zoning ordi- City Board of Estimate and Apportionment adopted an ordinance nance is generally seen as an exception: to control building volumes and land uses throughout Greater New while the rest of the country adopted C zoning to protect single-family resi- York. The resolution would become a cornerstone in the structure of dential areas, NewYorkdid so to ratio- North American land use regulation. It was the work of the Commission nalize the downtown market in high- on Building Districts and Restrictions and of the Heights of Buildings rise office buildings. This article argues Committee; the latter had first recommended the adoption of differenti- that the resolution was less excep- tional and more mainstream than is ated building regulations in 1913. The New York zoning system com- generally thought, and that its scope bined three use districts: one reserved for housing, one open to was metropolitan rather than local. commerce, and one where industrial activities were tolerated as well; five The authors of the code addressed is- height districts, in which buildings could not be higher than a certain sues that are still at the top of the planning agenda: residential segrega- multiple of the width of the street (from one to two-and-a-half);and five Downloaded By: [CDL Journals Account] At: 20:56 5 January 2009 tion and suburban flight from the cen- area districts, with progressively more stringent requirements for the tral city, infrastructure development minimum size of yards and courts and the maximum percentage of the and fiscal balance. A second look at the early work of the New York plan- lot covered. ners shows how varied their objectives As the well known story goes, the Committee on Building Heights were and how applicable their thinking and the Commission on Building Districts and Restrictions had worked still is. under heavy pressure from real estate and business owners who were anx- Fischler is an assistant professor in the ious to put an end to the damages wrought by uncontrolled development. School of Urban Planning at McCill Office buildings in the financial district were losing their light and air to University, Montreal. He does research higher and bulkier skyscrapers, while fancy retail stores on Fifth Avenue and teaches in the areas of land use were seeing their high-class status eroded by the intrusion of tall garment regulation, urban design, and project development, as well as in planning factories. The members of the two commissions-among whom were history and theory. planning pioneers and advocates such as Edward M. Bassett, Robert H. Whitten, and George B. Ford-built on the intellectual and technical Journal of the American Planning foundation laid by Benjamin Marsh, Lawrence Veiller, and other reform- Association, Vol. 64, No. 2, Spring 1998. "American Planning ers who had fought to reduce the congestion of population in Manhattan. Association, Chicago, IL. The commissions' work represented the latest and most ambitious efforts i170 MA JOURNAL - SPMNG 1998 THE METROPOLITAN DIMENSION OF EARLY ZONING of municipalities to control the design of buildings areas. Thus, two other historians explain, the ordi- and the use of land. Already, fire codes in many cities nance “aimed primarily at rationalizing the landscape forbade timber construction within a central zone; rather than at excluding ‘undesirables’ (like zoning housing codes regulated building volume and design laws elsewhere)” (Ward and Zunz 1992, 8). Although for multi-family residences; Boston’s height restric- the New York City code did contain important pro- tions differed from one part of the downtown area to visions for protecting residential areas, those were the other; New York State allowed for the creation of secondary to the regulations about downtown cop- residential areas in its second-class cities. But the New mercial property. “The story of zoning in New York,” York City ordinance went further: it was the first com- Weiss concludes, “is primarily the saga of the growth prehensive zoning ordinance, that is, the first ordi- of the Manhattan skyscraper” (Weiss 1992a, 47)’ nance that applied both use and bulk restrictions to From this perspective, New York zoning was the the entire municipal territory. brainchild of property and financial interests working Yet history, and certainly the history of zoning in to regularize real estate markets and to foster the de- particular, are products of interpretation and hence velopment of the corporate city. This is the vision that the subjects of disagreement. According to William prevails, implicitly or explicitly, in the classic works of Munro, leader of the National Municipal League, “the S. J. Makielski, Jr. (1966) and Seymour Toll (1969), as zoning idea came not from the property owner but well as in the more recent essays ofMarc Weiss (1992a; from the officials of city administration, and its first 1992b). The accounts of these historians are thorough advance was with the purpose of helping public ad- and detailed; the events they relate, however, take ministration by making it more orderly, diminishing place in a circumscribed spatial arena, downtown its difficulties, and reducing needless outlays” (Munro Manhattan, and revolve around a limited set of issues, 1931, 203). Writing at the same time as Munro, the mainly the regulation of office and loft development.z lawyer W. L. Pollard cited the reduction of “friction In thus narrowing their vision, the authors highlight and strife” in urban environments (Pollard 1931, 33); the uniqueness of the situation from which the 1916 he also emphasized the uglier side of the zoning effort, ordinance emerged and bring back to life some of the pointing out that “racial hatred played no small part individuals and groups who left their imprint on in bringing to the front some of the early districting American urban history. ordinances which were sustained by the United States But history comprises more than the masterful re- Supreme Court, thus giving us our first important alization of particular objectives. Zoning made its way zoning decisions” (17). In our own era, Richard Bab- so quickly into so many municipal codes throughout cock has stressed the class bias inherent in zoning, ar- North America in large part because it meant different guing that “far from being a ‘negative tool’ zoning has things to different people (Scott 1971,192-3). Though been a positive force shaping the character of the mu- real estate and business interests played a leading role nicipality to fits [sic] its frequently vague but neverthe- in the inception and diffusion of zoning, planning ad- less powerful [social and political] preconceptions,” in vocates, professional reformers, and public officials particular those about the sanctity of the single-family were other key parties in the formulation and adop- Downloaded By: [CDL Journals Account] At: 20:56 5 January 2009 home and the segregation of rich from poor (Babcock tion of municipal regulations (Revel1 1992). Within 1966, 123). the legal profession, those “who were instrumental in With respect to the 1916 code of New York City, the enactment and judicial approval of American zon- however, there has been little disagreement. As formu- ing laws . were a mixed group, with mixed motives” lated by Marc Weiss, the consensus is that “New York‘s (Power 1989,ll). Stabilizing real estate values and fos- pioneering zoning law stands as an anomaly in United tering economic growth, protecting residential areas States urban history because its basic, political,