Plot B contains more than 100 acres, is north and west of Idlewild Airport on land proposed to be acquired for the expansion of the airport, but not needed for this purpose for several years. The acquisition of this property has already been recomended by the Comptroller as an addition to the airport. All that would be necessary would be to advance the date of acquisition and to acquire the property immediately. Part of the adjacent area is now being filled by the department of sanitation and these filling operations would have to be discontinued. Plot C is the area known as Ulmer Park, just south of Belt Parkway on Gravesend Bay. This contains 20 acres. An easement should be condemned for a 3-year period. Plot D includes the 40-acre piece of Canarsie Park north of the Belt Parkway, and additional surrounding privately-owned property. An easement would have to be condemned on approximately seventy acres of privately owned property for a period of 3 years. This plot would have a total area of 110 acres. This part of the park has not been developed and can be deferred because of the emergency. We estimate the cost of condemning the easements heretofore outlined at $300,000 and the total cost, including complete installation of the huts, at $26,000,000. We recommend that this sum be made available to the city housing authority out of city capital funds without delay, on the assumption that it is unlikely that the rental would cover little more than the cost of the easement and of the park development. Pending legislation may make Federal funds available for at least a part of this cost, but if this is not forthcoming we see no way of solving the problem without the expenditure of city funds. The total number of persons to be accommodated in these huts would be 25,000. They would be taken down within 3 years in the course of which they would be crowded but reasonably comfortable. They are built of metal and are more fire resistant than other types. We believe that this is by all odds the best of the temporary expedients which have been suggested, and it is our further conclusion that the first of these huts will be available for occupancy in 3 months, and all of them on or before July 1, 1946. Coming now to so-called demountable or other temporary wartime housing declared surplus by the Federal Government, we believe that the arguments against importing such housing into the city are, under anything like normal conditions, quite unanswerable, and that except as a last resort the disadvantages to the entire community are formidable. To begin with, there is only a small amount of such housing which the city of New York, as distinguished from other municipalities, may obtain. The most recent estimate of demountable housing units given us by the Federal authorities indicates that within 700 miles of New York City approximately 2,500 could be made available and that 1,000 trailers and 3,000 temporary units can also be made available. This housing is in all sorts of stages of disrepair and disintegration and many parts will have to be replaced. Red tape and delays involved in acquisition, moving, and reconstruction are usually underestimated. The structures will be expensive to take apart, move, and reerect. They will always be more or less unsatisfactory, and many collateral problems will arise, including the abandonment in certain areas of building and fire standards. We doubt whether any law or promise to remove these structures within a short time will be carried out, and we feel that the slums which will result will be a disfigurement, hazard, and handicap for a long time. Therefore, the locations selected for such housing must be chosen with the greatest care. We have recommended some undeveloped park areas for temporary use in the previous paragraphs describing Quonset huts, but the idea of placing temporary structures of any kind in needed central public parks required for rest and recreation is unthinkable. Not only would areas needed for outdoor recreation, at a time when juvenile delinquency and other similar problems are under discussion, have to be sacrificed, but the surrounding property would depreciate in value, the entire zoning system in the area would collapse, and all kinds of other hazards and threats would soon arouse neighborhood protest. Most recommendations for the use of park areas for abandoned and reerected war housing have been made by those who do not know the problems. For example, it has been suggested that a large part of Flushing Meadow Park be used for such housing, on the assumption that all the utilities necessary for this purpose exist in this area. The fact is that the facilities provided at the time of the fair consisted in part of permanent installations for limited park use, and in part of temporary installations for the fair, which have either been removed or have disintegrated in the ground. For the reasons outlined above, it is recommended that these temporary demountable wartime housing units and trailers which we consider undesirable, especially from the point of view of the fire hazard created, be imported only to the extent that the problem is not met by the remedies we have suggested. It is conceivable that because of delay in conversion of one and two-family houses and the rehabilitation of boarded-up tenements, we may require the temporary use of small numbers of these units at certain carefully selected locations where they cannot possibly create serious hazards to the surronding population. Approximately 13 acres of right-of-way required for Major Deegan Expressway in the Borough of the Bronx could be made available for these demountable houses or trailers. This property must be acquired by the city and State for the highway program and it could be used temporarily for emergency housing. This part of the program should also be placed under the New York City Housing Authority. It is apparent that one of the most serious difficulties in the way of releasing this program, especially as to the immediate emergency, lies in the shortage of building materials. Full consideration of this subject would require a separate report of considerable length. The solution of this basic problem obviously must be Nation-wide, but it is essential that the needs of so large a community as this be strongly emphasized. For this reason, we urge that you as mayor discuss fully with the proper Federal officials the breaking of material bottlenecks. We conclude with a summary of the methods we have recommended of taking care of the people who must be housed. If the committee can be of further service to you in carrying out these recommendations, command us. Additional public housing under Wagner-Ellender-Taft bill. 16,000 60,000 Additional public housing from unappropriated balance of original $300,000,000 22,500 90,000 OPA rental adjustments on all-year-round houses in Rockaways.. OPA rental adjustments to allow conversion of summer bungalows in Rockaways, Quonset huts.. Converted Army camps., Demountable houses, trailers, and other temporary units. Total.. 43,300 140,000 Robert Moses (Chairman), Edmond B. Butler, Richard E. Dougherty, Hon. WILLIAM O'DWYER, Mayor-Elect of the City of New York, DEAR GENERAL: It is not a light matter to disagree with so distinguished a membership as composed your committee on housing. While I am in agreement with certain parts of the report, I find myself unable to concur with the majority on fundamental issues relating to rehabilitation of old law tenements, conversion General concurrence, with dissent in separate report on the question of conversion of one- and two-family dwellings, rehabilitation, extent of temporary program and, in part, on long-range permanent program. |