The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-10-07
CLEVELAND new
HOUSING LAW
Regulations For Tenements Re-
garded as Model.
COMPILED BY EXPERTS.
1t Is Believed the New Code Will Pre-
vent the Existence Of congested Dis
triots, Which Are the 5ane of So
Many MunieipaIities.

triots, Which Are the Bane of So
Many Munieipalitieo.
a rev tenement law, known rs "the
suri!sht code" has been adopted in
CleS einnd, o.. by act OF council. and it
Is believed the measure will serve as u
EICd.l COR The code writer's of other
American cities which are dealing with
siLli!dl problems,
II code. 1t is believed. will prevent
the.c;ia;eiEc III Cleveland Of congested
dittti Is, WiSl1h nre The bane of so
many municipalities. Particular inter.
est celitcrs, however, IN the adoption
of tic suns angle as AN absolute factor
IN determining sizes of courts" and
yards for tenements.
1t was after four years OF considera-
ton by tie coh1mittce on housing CON
ditions of the chamber of commerce, in
consultation With Virgil ID. Allen, city
building commissioner, that the code
came into existence
Commissioner Allen In speaking of
the new code, which he was largely
instrumental in bringing about, said:
The old rules had always been to
provide courts and yards first, accord
ing to the number of stories In height
of the building and. second, by the
length or depth of the lot. 1t was OBJ
vious to me that 1t is the height of the
wall which casts the shadow and not
the number of subdivisions back of
the wall. Therefore it seemed imma-
terial whether wall which Is 100 feet
high is divided into one or twenty sto-
ries. 1t casts exactly the same shad-
cided to make the width of the courts
n function of the height of the wall.
that function to be the tangent Of the
angle between the suns rays and the
vertical or ninety degrees, This tan
gent is "a plus,
1t was afterward determined to
slightly modify this rule to make this
function exactly one-third of the height
of the wall, which is so small a varia
ton from the true angle as to be neg
ligible The length of a court we arr
bitrarDy placed at one and one'haf
times its width, which works out to
be one-half of the height of the. wall.
Where a passageway is provided at
the side of a building from the front
of the building to the yard in the rear
we made that one-half the width of
the court or yard as above determined
This was on the ground that, while ws
lost the sunlight, we had the free cir
culation of air through this space, If
being open at the front and rear
whereas the other type of courts may
be entirely surrounded by walls, ana
the circulation of air therein is conse-
quently much poorer This made the
width of the yards at the sides of Il
one-siXth the height of the adj
joining wall.
This covers all courts and yards
surrounded or partially surrounded by
walls of building.
For rear yards on interior lots, the
direct rays of the sun are allowed to
shine into the yard for Mt least two
months of the year, which made the
depth 30 per cent of the height of the
nearest adjacent wall, with mini
mum of ten feet.
For corner lots the depth of the yard
is made 40 of the height of the wall,
with minimum Of eight feet.
These rules, we believe, are the sim
plest yet written and give every advar /
tage to the designer who is careful
In the Arrangement of his building,
both vertically and horizontally on his
lot.
The theory will apply to all cities,
of their latitude, since If
they are farther north where they will
get less sunlight, their courts and yard
will be wider, and if farther south.
where they will get more sunlight, the
courts and yards will be correspond
ingly smaller,
In these rules all reference to the
size of lots and number of stories in a
building has been eliminated, and an
mipimum has been estab-
lished for courts and yards, which is
that where the width is one-third the
height of the wall the minimum is six
feet. which is about equivalent to that
required for two story building where
a width of one-sixth of the height of
the wall is required. The minimum is
four feet and is as small a passage
way as would be useful for firemen
when passing from front to rear with
q ~. r,,ichit,cr a mn In tug