PLANNING COMMISSIONS

1. HISTORY

The appointment of planning commissions is the most recent step in the development of the unit idea in city planning. In theory, the function of this new agency is to correlate the official plans prepared in the various municipal departments, to pass upon unofficial plans or suggestions for improvement, and to make plans of its own in all cases where no existing agency has jurisdiction. Hartford, Connecticut, was the first to establish such a commission under a resolution of the Connecticut Legislature of 1907.[161] The Chicago plan commission dates from 1909; the Baltimore and Detroit commissions from the following year.

In 1911 Pennsylvania and New Jersey passed general acts enabling cities of the second class (Pittsburgh and Scranton) in Pennsylvania and cities of the first class in New Jersey, to create an additional executive department to be known as the department of city planning. In 1913, by general law, New York state authorized the appointment of planning commissions in all cities and incorporated villages; Pennsylvania extended the act of 1911 with important amendments to cities of the third class, and Massachusetts made planning commissions mandatory in all cities and towns of over 10,000. In the same year by special act of the Connecticut Assembly plan commissions were authorized for the cities of New Haven and West Hartford, following the precedent of Hartford; in Ohio, Cleveland[162] and Dayton included city planning commissions in their new city charters.

The following list of active plan commissions does not include temporary commissions appointed merely to make a report or prepare a city plan.

TABLE 8.—YEARS IN WHICH PLANNING COMMISSIONS WERE AUTHORIZED, AND SOURCE OF AUTHORIZATION, FOR THE 54 CITIES OR TOWNS HAVING PLANNING COMMISSIONS IN APRIL, 1914

CityYearAuthorized by
Hartford, Conn.1907Act
Chicago, Ill.1909Ordinance
Baltimore, Md.1910Act
Detroit, Mich.1910Ordinance
Jersey City, N. J.1911Act
Newark, N. J.1911Act
St. Louis, Mo.1911Ordinance
Pittsburgh, Pa.1911Act
Philadelphia, Pa.1911Ordinance
Salem, Mass.1911Ordinance
Lincoln, Neb.1911Ordinance
Trenton, N. J.1912Ordinance
Cincinnati, Ohio1913Ordinance
Scranton, Pa.1913Act
Schenectady, N. Y.1913Ordinance
Pittsfield, Mass.1913Act
Fitchburg, Mass.1913Act
Waltham, Mass.1913Act
Lawrence, Mass.1913Act
Lowell, Mass.1913Act
Springfield, Mass.1913Act
Northampton, Mass.1913Act
Holyoke, Mass.1913Act
Malden, Mass.1913Act
Louisville, Ky.1913Ordinance
New Haven, Ct.1913Act
New London, Ct.1913Ordinance
Bridgeport, Ct.1913Ordinance
Erie, Pa.1913Act
Providence, R. I.1913Ordinance
Adams, Mass. (town)1913Act
Chelsea, Mass.1913Act
Chicopee, Mass.1913Act
Cambridge, Mass.1913Act
Chester, Pa.1913Act
Easton, Pa.1913Act
Syracuse, N. Y.1914Act
Meadeville, Pa.1914Act
Reading, Pa.1914Act
Scranton, Pa.1914Act
Harrisburg, Pa.1914Act
Oil City, Pa.1914Act
Boston, Mass.1914Act
Gloucester, Mass.1914Act
Haverhill, Mass.1914Act
Melrose, Mass.1914Act
Medford, Mass.1914Act
Newton, Mass.1914Act
Newburyport, Mass.1914Act
Somerville, Mass.1914Act
Taunton, Mass.1914Act
Watertown, Mass. (town)1914Act
Framingham, Mass. (town)1914Act
Binghamton, N. Y.1914Act

A suburban metropolitan plan commission was also created in 1913 for Pennsylvania cities of the first class (Philadelphia), to have jurisdiction over a district comprising the cities within 25 miles of Philadelphia. This commission is to be composed of fifteen members appointed by the governor of the state. Its aim is to secure “coordinating comprehensive plans of highways and roads, parks and parkways, and all other means of intercommunication; water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal, collection and disposal of garbage, housing, sanitation and health, playgrounds, civic centers, and other public improvements that will affect the character of the district as a whole or more than one political unit within the district.”[163] The aims of the commission can be realized only by recommendation to the several governmental units contained in the district. This legislation is particularly interesting since it is the first successful attempt to create a metropolitan planning commission.

The commission of inquiry appointed by the governor of Massachusetts in 1911 presented to the legislature of 1912 a draft for just such a planning commission, which contained a novel feature for getting its plans carried out. Massachusetts is well supplied with executive commissions with some planning functions. It has a highway board, a grade crossing commission, a transit commission, a gas and electric light commission, a railroad commission, a metropolitan park commission, and a metropolitan water and sewer board, all with jurisdiction in the metropolitan district. The commission of inquiry wisely recommended the necessity of keeping these existing commissions in office. Their tasks were large enough.

The new commission was to be distinctly a planning and not an executing body. Its province was to be suggestion, advice, supervision, and correlation. The cities and towns of the metropolitan district were to be offered, for the consummation of improvements classed as metropolitan by the planning commission, the credit of the state and a direct contribution toward the cost of improvements by the state and by the metropolitan district at large, if the local unit accepted in its development the plan of the commission. The device thus incorporated in the bill recognized two strongly rooted attributes in municipal character—jealousy of local self-government and openness to persuasion when the persuasion is golden. It distinctly kept hands off of metropolitan commissions, county commissions, and local governments, by the provision that all improvements should be executed by the body that would have executed them before the passage of the bill. It offered merely to provide a plan for the whole district and help on the financial burden. All improvements in the metropolitan district submitted to the proposed planning commission were to be classified as local improvements, as ordinary metropolitan improvements, or as extraordinary improvements. In the case of purely local improvements the locality stood the entire financial burden; in the case of ordinary metropolitan improvements the localities in which the improvement was located paid 65 per cent of the entire cost, the metropolitan district 20 per cent and the state 10 per cent; in the case of an extraordinary metropolitan improvement the distribution of the expense was to be determined by a commission appointed by the supreme court of the state.

A feature of very real financial assistance was offered by the provision that towns or cities of the district might borrow money to meet the expense of metropolitan improvements, and this loan would not be considered in reckoning the debt limit. The weakness of the device is in the provision that 20 per cent of the cost of metropolitan improvements should be paid by the entire district. It is very questionable whether there is unity enough in any metropolitan district to allow a fixed assessment over the whole district for an improvement where the most direct benefit is to only two or three towns. But this interesting experiment did not survive the legislative hearing. It was defeated not so much because of opposition to the principle of the bill as out of real or imaginary fear in the minds of the political leaders in the towns and cities about Boston, who see in any plan for a more unified development of the metropolitan district the domination of Boston.

Another legislative experiment in city planning which did not come to maturity should also be mentioned. In 1910 the city of Seattle adopted an amendment to the city charter by the addition of a new article which created a municipal plans commission. Seattle was just then finishing some costly reconstruction, washing away grades and widening important thoroughfares, and the wisdom of avoiding such an experience again appealed to the city with peculiar emphasis. The amendment put on the commission the duty of procuring plans for the arrangement of the city with a view to such expansion as would meet probable future demands. Of the twenty-one members of the commission seven represented the city or county government, and fourteen were appointed by the mayor from nominations of fourteen groups representing architects, engineers, business, real estate, the water front owners, and the public service corporations. The commission served without compensation but was authorized to employ experts, not exceeding three, to prepare a comprehensive plan.

So far there is nothing new in the legislation, but the next provisions are unique. The report was to be presented to the mayor and council not later than December 30, 1911, and

They shall cause the recommendations of the commissions to be submitted to the people at the next general or special election. If a majority of the voters shall favor the adoption of said plan so reported it shall be adopted and shall be the plan to be followed by the city executive departments in the growth, evolution, and development of the city of Seattle until modified or amended at some subsequent election.

After a most thoroughgoing study by an expert, the commission presented an excellent plan and went out of existence September 30, 1911. There was no provision in the legislation for educating the people sufficiently to enable them to cast an intelligent vote. The Seattle experiment is interesting in being the first attempt to make the whole electorate directly responsible for the direction of the city’s growth. It is in accordance with the democratic ideas of legislation which have come out of the west. The people were not ready for so big a program and defeated the project at the polls in the spring of 1912.

No one of these commissions has had a history long enough to be judged by its accomplishments. The Hartford commission, which is the oldest, has fulfilled one of its duties by the publication of a preliminary report embodying the recommendations of the advisory architects for a plan of the city. Its chief activity outside of this has been along lines similar to these employed by the Baltimore topographical survey commission. Detroit’s commission, after working without adequate appropriation for two years, has started the preparation of a plan. The Newark commission under expert advice has prepared two reports; one preliminary in character reviewing the general problem and making some recommendations in regard to the improvement of street lines and grades and street car operations; the other, a special study of a most congested point in Newark at the junction of Broad and Market streets. Other commissions have outlined plans of activity.

2. THE FUNCTIONS OF A CITY PLANNING COMMISSION

The effectiveness of any city planning commission is bound to be dependent on the attitude of other existing administrative agencies which have as a part of their function the planning and execution of public improvements. This attitude does not spring merely from self-interest of the older agencies. If, for instance, the street commission or the bureau of survey is doing its work of planning a street system well and seeing that parts of it get constructed at the proper time, there would seem to be little in this line for a planning commission. The same may be said of the park commission, the school board, and others. The city, in other words, may have administrative agencies which are covering practically the entire field of municipal effort in planning the streets, the parks, the public buildings, and other works.

The legislation under which city plan commissions are established recognizes the difficulty in the creation of a new administrative body whose powers may overlap those of existing agencies. This is evidenced particularly in the provision covering membership and scope of powers. Co-operation with existing administrative agencies and with law making bodies is aimed at in Hartford, in St. Louis, and in Salem, Massachusetts, by having both the administrative and legislative side of the government represented on the commission. In each of these cities the mayor is ex-officio chairman of the city plan commission. In Hartford seven of the nine city plan commissioners are members of the city administration. Besides the mayor, the official members are the city engineer, president of the street commissioners, president of the park commissioners, the superintendent of parks, and a member from both branches of the city council. In St. Louis seven of the fifteen members are from official life, the mayor, the president of the board of public improvement, the street commissioner, the park commissioner, the building commissioner, the president of the city council, and the speaker of the house of delegates. In Salem, Massachusetts, the city government is represented in the commission by the mayor, the president of the board of aldermen, and the president of the common council. Detroit’s commissioner of public works, commissioner of parks and boulevards, and city engineer are ex-officio members of the plan commission, but without power to vote.

Further to avoid conflict with existing agencies, commissions are given very limited powers which make them hardly more than advisory bodies. That of Baltimore, for instance, has merely the duty of investigating all plans proposed for the extension of highways and the establishment of a civic center and other public improvements in connection therewith, and reporting the results of its investigations to the city council. Several commissions are charged with the constructive duty of preparing a systematic plan, and in connection therewith are given more or less control over private platting in order to compel conformity with the plan. The Detroit commission has an additional power similar to that given to a municipal art commission. Section 6 provides:

No work of art shall be removed, relegated or altered in any way, nor shall any property be acquired for park or boulevard purposes, nor playground, nor shall any property be condemned for the widening or extension of any park, boulevard or public playground unless the project has been submitted to and approved by the city plan commission; nor shall any gift to the city of a monumental character be accepted until the sketch, plan and location of the same has been approved by the city commission.

First Function: To Secure Correlation of Efforts. But assuming existing agencies which plan adequately for each class of the physical elements of a city and which carry out satisfactorily these several plans, there is still needed a permanent body, non-partisan in character, whose primary function shall be to harmonize the plans of existing agencies and to bring forward for execution those plans which are most demanded. This new agency should be the constant guardian of the city plan to which every question of planning policy should be referred, just as questions of financial policy are now referred to a finance commission in several cities of the United States.

That the lack of correlation is a serious problem is proved in the experience of many cities. There is no guarantee of co-operation between the several administrative departments with planning functions. There is, of course, some co-operation, but the maximum or minimum depends on nothing except the good sense and friendly feeling of bureau heads. It is not an unusual thing for the street department to spend some time and some money on resurfacing, only to have the street opened within a month by the water or sewer department for the installation of new water pipes or drains. And what is true of streets and highways can be illustrated in other departments of planning activity.

An improvement is now too seldom considered in its relation to the whole plan. Alternative schemes for a subway are discussed and determined in the interest of those whose property is affected, and the effect of either scheme on the relief of congestion or the opening of new territory to residence gets scant consideration. Street car companies and representatives of the city and property owners fasten on the city a transit system approaching a maze in intricacy and leaving focal points without connection. The transportation problem alone needs a trained agency constantly studying tendencies of retail trade, of the drift of waterfront activities, and constantly suggesting the need for new connecting links either for highways or transit lines.

However desirable in theory may be this vesting of control over physical development of the city in a new agency, there is little or no provision for it in the procedure of existing plan commissions. They are for the most part frankly advisory boards, and in some cases have no power even of suggestion unless called upon by the mayor and council. If the plan commission is to be an intelligent correlating agency, there must be provision for constant reference to it of new construction work of all municipal departments even at the risk of swamping the clerical force of the city planning commission by a mass of detail with little bearing on the city plan. And if any department proposes a serious violation of the plan for the whole city, the plan commission should have the opportunity to arrest the proposed violation long enough to get the point at issue before the public and their representatives in city council and thus fix the responsibility for whatever action is taken after careful consideration.

There are, of course, objections to this modified veto power. It tends to undo an excellent municipal reform by which has been achieved the concentration of responsibility for a public action, and it tends also to produce delay in the execution of public work. But with such a power a judicious and tactful commission would settle most differences in conference, and without it even an ideally constituted commission might be helpless. Just what form this veto shall take and how it shall affect the relations between existing administrative departments and the new agency will depend largely on local conditions, and this question with many others of organization and procedure must wait for more than a theoretical answer until existing commissions have had a longer history. Interesting in this connection is section 3 of the recent Pennsylvania act authorizing plan commissions in third class cities, which provides that all bills and ordinances must, upon introduction in the city council, be referred to the plan commission. The proposed measures may be disapproved by the plan commission but disapproval shall not operate as a veto.[164]

Second Function: To Facilitate Future Improvements. The second function of the city planning commission is to suggest changes in the way of doing things calculated to facilitate the execution of a plan. The city planning field is peculiarly one for investigation and experimentation, and the city planning agency is as necessary in it as an experiment station in the fields of forestry and agriculture.

It took but little experimenting to prove the economic value of a flexible street which may be stretched to meet future demands. The flexibility is produced sometimes by imposing a building line set back from the street line varying distances,—even the minimum distance of 10 feet on either side providing an inexpensive increase in the street’s width of 20 feet. The same result is accomplished by the city’s acquiring a greater width than is at present necessary for the use of the street and allowing a certain portion of this width on either side to be used by the owners for garden purposes, but not for buildings of any kind.

Boston’s experiments with her narrow streets in congested retail districts have brought about the use of one-way streets and the regulations against standing vehicles. Other cities have taken a census of traffic conditions along important traffic ways and, in New York City at least, there have been attempts made to direct the lines of traffic particularly at congested centers.

It is possible to have a degree of flexibility even in an area closely built up with expensive buildings, such as downtown districts of any large city, if the planning board is given the right to modify the provisions of the building code in return for concessions from property owners, and a very necessary widening of streets is made possible which otherwise would be prohibitively expensive. In cities, for instance, which have established a height limitation for buildings, even in the central business district, owners fronting on narrow streets might grant to the city land enough to give the street adequate width if their loss in floor space was compensated, not in money but by allowing them to exceed the height limitation by the addition of other stories to their buildings. A building with a 100-foot frontage and 100-foot depth, 10 stories in height, would lose in actual floor area 10,000 feet by a grant to the city of 10 feet for sidewalk purposes along its entire frontage. By adding another story 10 to 15 feet in height, 9,000 feet of this loss would be returned. To determine the feasibility of such suggestions as this would be particularly the province of the city planning board.

Parks and playgrounds now purchased or appropriated at great expense and even then but meagerly supplied in many cities, should be reserved in advance of actual need. Where the problem has best been solved, as in the small parks and playgrounds of Chicago, the commissioners are able to locate wisely new parks and playgrounds in accordance with the density of population, as shown on maps of the city, which are kept up to date. The suggestion is that this can be done with sufficient accuracy before prices rise, and that a planning board is best qualified to make such a reservation because of its intimate knowledge of the trend of industry and other factors which determine the density of population.

The plan commission should be concerned not only with the original planning of the streets but with the changes of the street system made necessary by the location of new industries, the location of new terminal stations either for steam lines or rapid-transit lines, or the appearance of any new element which will create a focal center and attract a stream of travel. There is not a city of 100,000 in the United States which ought not today to widen streets or open new ones in order to give an adequate approach to travel centers. If this widening or opening were done at the time when it could be done most economically and when a planning board would advise it, if the problem were constantly studied by such a board, cities would be saved great outlays for reconstruction and great losses through failure to reconstruct.

3. BROAD OPPORTUNITIES OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION

The city planning board would be quick to discover desirable changes in legislation. The activity in city planning legislation of the 1913 Pennsylvania Legislature shows what may be accomplished by a commission intimately acquainted with the local difficulties which prevent satisfactory execution of plans. It passed a city planning act for the cities and towns within 25 miles of Philadelphia. It authorized the appointment of city planning commissions for cities of the third class. It increased the power of the Philadelphia art jury so that its approval is made necessary for the selection of the site as well as the design of public structures.[165] It granted to all the cities of the state the power to indicate on the official plan, reservations of parks and playgrounds in the same way as they now are allowed to establish an official plan for streets.

Various phases of the planning problem are from time to time made the subject of investigation by special commissions, as for instance, the Massachusetts commission appointed to consider the methods of land acquisition which have been described on page [106]. Such studies might be better conducted by the plan commissions whose experience with other planning problems would be of great value.

Finally, the commission should at all times be a propagandist body educating the citizens to see the economy of planning in general and to decide every specific question of the city’s physical growth from the standpoint of city planning. The thoroughgoing work of the Chicago plan commission in this field is an example of what can be accomplished.

The creation of a city plan commission would be justified if it did nothing but safeguard the unit idea by correlating the work of other municipal departments in accordance with the city plan. If it is also to make clear to the citizens the value of city planning and to be a bureau of city planning research, its task will be so consuming that it need not take over any of the functions of existing agencies.