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that a specific extension of the principle of the Act of 1871 to the widening of Chestnut Street was implied in the ordinance of 1874, under authority of the Act of April, 1870, and that it is not generally applicable to widenings, a general act so intending ought to be secured from the legislature.

In the Chestnut Street case existing buildings covered most of the space between the building line and the street line, and the exercise of the power, with the consequent accruement of damages, occurred in each case only when the original building was torn down by the owner and he was required to set the new building back to the new building line.

The same principle is equally applicable to those cases where the existing buildings are mostly or wholly back of the new building line; the damages becoming due in such a case only when a building permit for the erection of a new structure encroaching on the designated open space is actually withheld.

The advantages of such a method of procedure, in the case of those highways where all, or nearly all, of the buildings are now set back from the street and where a widening will ultimately be needed, are obvious and very great. In a large percentage of cases, where the street is still mainly residential, the majority of the abutters would welcome the establishment of a building line for their own protection from inconsiderate neighbors; just as the majority of people will pay higher prices for lots in a neighborhood that is protected by properly drawn restrictions for setbacks, etc., imposed by a land company. In a great many such cases abutters could be induced to waive any claims for damages on condition that the building line should be applied to the whole street. Furthermore, the actual net damages to be paid would be distributed over a long period, and a considerable proportion of them, in many cases, could properly be assessed on adjacent benefited property owners.

When the actual physical widening of the street takes place, through absorbing the restricted zones on each side of it, the damages for land taking will be comparatively small, because at that time most of the abutters will want nothing so much as that very widening, if only to bring the sidewalks in contact with the fronts of their buildings. But regardless of its clear financial advantages to the City, in reducing its total payments for street

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Last modified on 22-Dec 1999
Design format: copyright 1997-1999 Bruce S. Cridlebaugh
Original document: Frederick Law Olmsted, 1910