Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-10-12
HOME PROTECTIVE
GROUPS OUTLINED
Proposed Units Would Have
Power to Conserve Values
for Owners.

An Idea draft" of a suggested State
statute which would authorize the
creation of neighborhood protective
and improvement districts, to rehablll-
tate blighted urban areas and con-
serve existing home regions for
stable and protected family life. has
been prepared by the National Asso-
citation of Real Estate Boards after
more than a year of study and con-
sultation.
The draft is being mailed this week
to member boards of the association
for their study. City planners and
plan commissions are asked to study
the proposal as now tentatively
drafted. The plan is expected to be
of interest to all groups concerned
with better utilization of built areas
and with bettered conditions of family
living (housing problem, mortgage
problem and taxation problem).
The proposed districts would enable
collective action of property owners
to improve the character of the dis
trict. This is action for which no
present instrument exists.
Herbert U. Nelson, Chicago. secre-
tary of the association, in a FORE
word states:
This draft of an act is submitted
to make more concrete the discussion
of one of the most vexed and difficult
problems in modern city life. 1t is
recognized that any act must have
many adaptations in order to fit into
the legal structure in different COM
munities and states.
Home values in American cities are
based largely on environmental fac
tors, that is. the standards and char
acter of the neighborhood. Good
character of neighborhood depends
mainly upon harmonious and similar
use of contiguous land plots. The
fact that we now have large blighted
areas in our cities is due in no small
part to bad mixture of land uses
and lack of adequate control of land
uses.
Rebuilding Of Cities.
about one-third of the privately
owned land area within our cities lies
vacant. We have made a huge in
vestment in utilities, improvements
and social services in our urban COM
munities which we cannot afford to
duplicate elsewhere. Rather than
seeking to decentralize our cities,
spreading them over increasingly vast
area which will involve costs for
physical and social services that we
cannot now even guess, it would seem
to be sound economy to attack the
problem of replanning and rebuilding
our cities within their present limits
in the light of what experience has
taught us. We should seek to solve
our problem rather than run away
from it.
THE proposal outlined in this sug-
geSted State statute assumes that the
neighborhood, an entity hard to de-
fine but which every one understands
more or less clearly, is the logical
unit with which to begin planning.
The people with whom to begin such
planning are those who own the prop
erty. They have the power and in
Centive to make sound plans effective
This proposal does not in any way
seek to do away with comprehensive
rity planning. That must still be done,
and its functions will be increasingly
important. Although city planning as
We have hitherto thought of it cannot
deal in detail with neighborhood
plans. it can and must undertake the
function of making plans which will
coordinate the activities and func-
tons of neighborhoods.
This present proposal builds upon
much that has already been attempt
ed successfully. Every sound land
developer has done all the things sug-
gested in this act. but because he
started with new land he was able to
do it through private contracts. Many
village governments have been or
ganized in metropolitan areas to carry
out what is essentially a neighborhood
plan. Within the cities innumerable
local improvement associations of
property owners have sought to &C.
complish the same ends through vol
untary effort.
Provisions of Act.
The act provides:
81. That three-fourths of the prop
erty owners in a properly defined
neighborhood may, with the approval
Of the court, organize a neighborhood
protective and improvement district.
Such district becomes a public cor
poration, not materially different from
the familiar drainage districts and
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