Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-17
HEAR|NGONGARACES
Commissioners Right to Dele
gate Authority Attacked.
CALLED CLASS REGULATION
Property Owners Object to Location
Near Them-Lawyers
Are Heard.

Have the Commissioners the right to
make a regulation which requires any
property owner to obtain the consent OF
% per cent of adjacent property owners
IN ofoer to carry on certain business?
That Is the question to which the public
garage situation resolved itself this morn
ing at a long hearing attended by hun
dred men, property owners from the
neighborhood of Goth and N streets, and
lawyers and public garage owners and
operators.
Property Owners Opposed
The hearing was a battle between the
garage men and the property owners.
Ii the garage people win, then it will
be perfectly easy to place a public gar
age almost anywhere that the demand
of the public indicate.
Lawyers and owners Of public gar
ages, actual and prospective, have sew
eral different kinds of brand-new argu-
ment on the question. The property
owners had but one-"We don't want it
near u.s.
Herman E. Gasche. member of real
estate firm which has sold piece of
prOuerty near Goth and N streets to the
Terminal Taxicab Company, asked the
Commissioners to change the Regulation
which requires a public garage to get
IS per cent Of the consent Of property
owners within two hundred feet to
one requiring. only a majority.
In presenting his statement he eX-
pressed the opinion that Washington
is regulated to death. and showed that
in many large cities there is absolute
ly no such requirement to public
garages.
He said that some member of Congress
had written to the Commissioners asking
that the regulation be changed up
ward" that is, that. instead of IS per
cent OF property owners, the regulation
should read SO that 50 or 50 per cent be
required. Mr.. Gasche said this member
came from Boston. and that telegram
received from Boston shows that city has
absolutely no such regulations.
Speaks for Property Owners.
Malcolm NJ. Hufty opposed the view of
the garage people. representing some of
the property owners in that section. He
based his objections mainly upon the
fact that his clients believed a public
garage would be a depreciating influence
upon property.
James B. Flynn. representing Charles
B. Early, who has a garage in the rear
Of 211S California avenue. was the law
yer who put up to the Commissioners the
to delegate so much authority to IS
per cent of the property owners.
He said that he had studied nearly all
garage cases in the United States, Eng
land and France, and had found that the
weight of authority seems to make these
specialized regulations null and void.
"Regulations Outgrown."
George Dunlop, speaking for the garage
people, said the present regulation had
been outgrown years ago, and that 1t had
been passed when automobiles were
noisy, dangerous and mysterious.
Now people have to have public
garages" said he. They are not thing
for one mans personal income to benefit
by. They are public necessity. and are
to be placed in sections adjacent to the
people who will use them and need them. :"
Mr.. Dunlop had batch of letters from
residents in the neighborhood of the pro-
posed garage at Goth and N streets. One
man, who said he slept in room within
twenty feet of a taxicab garage. gave
testimony that he never had been dis
turbed once In his slumbers.
''Is he deaf MANI" came an inquiry
from resident whose testimony had
been that at 900 feet garage is as noisy
as "a boiler shop