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Real Estate Development and Urban Form: Roadblocks in the Path to Residential Exclusivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Patricia Burgess Stach
Patricia Burgess Stach
Affiliation:
Patricia Burgess Stach is assistant professor in theInstitute of Urban Studies at the University of Texas, Arlington.
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Abstract

Many real estate developers in the United States consciously attempted to shape residential neighborhoods, but their success in determining the spatial and social structure of communities was mixed. This article describes the methods available to land developers and realtors and examines the application of these tools to a section of Columbus, Ohio. It demonstrates that the intentions of deed restrictions and other private means of land use control were often undermined by construction delays, general economic conditions, and outmoded requirements, as well as by the timing of annexation and the subsequent application of public zoning ordinances.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 63 , Issue 2: Real Estate in Business History , Summer 1989 , pp. 356 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1989

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References

1 Those business activities are discussed in the following sources, among others: Schlereth, Thomas J., “Burnham's Plan and Moody's Manual: City Planning as Progressive Reform,” Journal of the American Planning Association 47 (1981): 70–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blackford, Mansel G., “Civic Groups, Political Action, and City Planning in Seattle, 1892–1915,” Pacific Historical Beview 49 (1980): 557–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blackford, , “The Lost Dream: Businessmen and City Planning in Portisiland, Oregon, 1903–1914,” Western Historical Quarterly 15 (Jan. 1984): 39–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, William H., The City Beautiful Movement (Baltimore, Md., 1989)Google Scholar; Buder, Stanley, “The Model Town of Pullman: Town Planning and Social Control in the Gilded Age,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35 (1969): 390–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Buder, , Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; and Mohl, Raymond A. and Betten, Neil, “The Failure of Industrial City Planning: Gary, Indiana, 1906–1910,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 38 (1972): 203–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Warner, Sam Bass Jr, Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870–1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962)Google Scholar shows how the aggregate of the actions of individual land developers and independent contractors produced the socioeconomic stratification of Boston when its first suburbs were developing. He expands on this to develop the concept of “privatism,” where private individuals work to maximize their personal wealth and produce negative impacts on the city, more fully in The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia, Pa., 1968) and The Urban Wilderness (New York, 1972).

3 Weiss, Marc A., The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry end Urban Land Planning (New York, 1987), 56.Google Scholar

4 Weiss's Rise of the Community Builders illustrates the role that realtors and land subdividers played in shaping larger urban areas through their efforts to create particular types of communitics. This point is also brought out in Keating, Ann Durkin, Building Chicago: Suburban Development and the Creation of a Divided Metropolis (Columbus, Ohio, 1988)Google Scholar, chap. 4; and Stilgoe, John R., Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820–1939 (New Haven, Conn., 1988)Google Scholar, part 5, “The Planned Residential Community.”

5 Sies, Mary Corbin, “American Country House Architecture in Context: The Suburban Ideal of Living in the East and Midwest, 1877–1917” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1987)Google Scholar, chap. 5.

6 Ibid., chap. 6.

7 Ibid., chap. 7. Kenilworth is also discussed in Keating, Building Chicago, and its restrictions are noted in Ebner, Michael, Creating Chicago's North Shore: A Suburban History (Chicago, 1988), 67–68, 228–30, 240.Google Scholar

8 This is a major theme in Weiss's Rise of the Community Builders.

9 Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 65.

10 Nichols, Jesse Clyde, “The Responsibilities of Realtors in City Planning,” City Planning 1 (1925): 34–36Google Scholar; National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings, 1915, 84–87.

11 Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 44–46.

12 Weiss, Marc A. and Watts, John W., “Community Builders and Community Associations: The Role of Real Estate Developers in Private Residential Governance,” in U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Residential Community Associations: Private Gover nance in the Intergovernmental System (Washington, D.C., 1989)Google Scholar; Marc Weiss, “Own Your Own Home: The American Real Estate Industry and National Housing Policy,” paper presented at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio, 30 Dec. 1989; Siegan, Bernard, Land Use Without Zoning (Lexington, Mass., 1972), 33–34Google Scholar; and Keating, Building Chicago, 73–74, 77.

13 Monchow, Helen, The Use of Deed Restrictions in Subdivision Development (Chicago, 1928), 72–73.Google Scholar

14 Siegan, Land Use Without Zoning, 33–34, 78.

15 Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 97–98; Monchow, Use of Deed Restrictions, 74.

16 National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings, 1915, 75.

17 Weiss and Watts, “Community Builders and Community Associations”; Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 11–12; Siegan, Land Use Without Zoning, 78.

18 Weiss, Shirley, Smith, John E., Kaiser, Edward J., and Kenney, Kenneth B., Residential Developer Decisions: A Focused View of the Urban Growth Process (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1966), 17, 31–34.Google Scholar

19 National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings, 1916, 99–100.

20 Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 11–12, 65–66, 98–99.

21 Monchow, Use of Deed Restrictions, 74–76.

22 Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 65–66, 74–75.

23 The disproportionate influence of a couple of developers operating in a single city is dealt with more fully in Stach, Patricia Burgess, “Deed Restrictions and Subdivision Development in Columbus, Ohio, 1900–1970,” Journal of Urban History 15 (1988): 42–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as is the development of deed restrictions as a land use control device.

24 Mayer, Martin, The Builders: Houses, People, neighborhoods, Governments, Money (New York, 1978), 58–59Google Scholar; National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings, 1916, 106–7; Sies, “American Country House Architecture.” More contemporary use of restrictive covenants is discussed in Toews, John C., “Validity Rules Concerning Public Zoning and Private Covenants: A Comparison and Critique,” Southern California Law Review 39 (1966): 409–37Google Scholar; and Urban, Mark, “An Evaluation of the Applicability of Zoning Principles to the Law of Private Land Use Restrictions,” UCLA Law Review 21 (1974): 1655–89.Google Scholar

25 Siegan, Land Use Without Zoning, 83; Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 11–12.

26 The research reported in this anicle is part of a much larger study on the relationship between both public and private land use controls and patterns of residential development. The larger database includes information gained from examination of the recorded subdivision plats and deeds for 335 subdivisions in Columbus, Ohio, and seven of its suburbs. The twenty-nine subdivisions included in this study are located within a three-mile strip bordering the west side of Cleveland Avenue, the major thoroughfare traversing the northeast section of the city.

27 Throughout, the terms “deed restrictions” and “restrictive covenants” are used interchangeably to refer to those conditions of a restrictive nature written into a property deed, thus becoming a part of the legal contract between buyer and seller.

28 Helen Monchow, The Use of Deed Restrictions, 3–5.

29 Davies, Pearl Janet, Real Estate in American History (Washington, D.C., 1958), 64–67Google Scholar; National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings, 1915, 56–57, 66, 266, and Proceedings, 1916, 106–7.

30 Fisher, Ernest M. and Fisher, Robert M., Urban Real Estate (New York, 1954), 118–19Google Scholar; Monchow, Use of Deed Restrictions, 15–22.

31 Buchanan v. Warley 245 U.S. 60 (1917).

32 Shelley v. Kraemer 344 U.S. 1 (1948).

33 The larger body of data from which this research is drawn indicated that race restrictions appeared as late as 1960. It could not be determined whether the developer in question thought they were still enforceable or whether he knew they were not but felt that lot purchasers would assume they were since they appeared in the deed, which is a legal contract. In addition, racial exclusion could also be achieved, as it was in parts of Upper Arlington, Ohio, by making membership in a community association a condition of purchase and having that membership be granted by a vote of the existing members. Thus residents of an area could vote out a potential neighbor.

34 Monchow, Use of Deed Restrictions, 27, 32–35, 46–50.

35 Ibid., 50, Tables I, II, V.

36 Siegan, Land Use Without Zoning.

37 National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings, 1921, 26–33.

38 International City and Regional Planning Conference, Proceedings, 1925, 507.

39 Siegan, Land Use Without Zoning, 34; Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 139; Weiss, and Watts, , “Community Builders and Community Associations”; Federal Housing Administration, Neighborhood Standards for Central Ohio, Land Planning Bullerin No. 3–36B (Columbus, Ohio, 1950).Google Scholar

40 Monchow, Use of Deed Restrictions, 56–59. One subdivision studied by the author, though not included in this case study, applied restrictions to all lots in 1936, and specified a termination date of 1 January 1940, or until the area was covered by a zoning ordinance. By 1939 the subdivision had not yet been annexed to any municipality and was thus not subject to any zoning code; consequently, by vote of the residents, the area incorporated itself as a municipality under the laws of the State of Ohio and passed its own zoning code shortly before the deed restrictions were to expire.

41 The city also sought annexation of three other separately incorporated suburbs but was not successful.

42 Probably the epitome of Van de Boe-Hager's efforts is the Village of Riverlea. Platted as a single subdivision in the 1910s, Riverlea incorporated in 1939 and remains a wholly residential suburb of fewer than six hundred people.

43 Flint, Barbara J., “Zoning and Residential Segregation: A Social and Physical History, 1919–1940” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1977)Google Scholar, chap. 3. The same point was made by Ned Eichler in his study of postwar tract building, The Merchant Builders (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 19.

44 This was a descendant of the Neil family, whose farm became what is now Ohio State University.

45 This pattern did not hold true for the city as a whole. Although the pace of development slowed considerably, as might be expected given the Depression and the altered priorities of war, it did not stop altogether. Both land subdivision and construction continued at a steady rate, though in reduced amount, in the more select neighborhoods.

46 Shelley v. Kraemer.

47 Eichler, The Merchant Builders.

48 Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 11–12; Keating, Building Chicago.

49 Unfortunately vagaries of public recordkeeping make it difficult to track development and construction accurately. Deeds indicate who bought a lot when, but only sometimes include a sales price. Mortgage records apply only to those properties not bought outright, of course, and reflect the amount of the mortgage, not the total sale. The city no longer has building permit records indicating the date and cost of dwelling construction (which would apply only to those within the corporate limits at the time of construction). Many county tax records also no longer exist, though one can sometimes approximate time and cost of construction by changes in assessed valuation. Finally, since census tracts and blocks do not correspond to subdivision plats, it is difficult to make effective use of the census information that exists.

50 National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings, 1916, 99–100; Proceedings, 1921, 26–29, 32–35; Proceedings, 1926, 65; International City and Regional Planning Conference, Proceedings, 1925, 409–16, 507. The real estate industry's support of zoning is a major theme of Weiss's Rise of the Community Builders.

51 Monchow, Use of Deed Restrictions, 76–77.

52 One can draw only very general conclusions about construction timing and value. The city of Columbus no longer has building permit records for this period. Also, since more than one-third of the area was not annexed, it would not have been covered by the city's building code. Since there is no detailed information specific to the Linden area, one must work from aggregate figures. Information on building permits and their declared valuation was taken from Columbus City directories compiled by R. L. Polk Co. during the relevant period.

53 This confirms Weiss's findings from California, where urban population increases and apparent prosperity created a subdivision boom that developed into a “speculative frenzy” peaking around 1926; Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 73.

54 Weiss and Watts, “Community Builders and Community Associations.”

55 Monchow, Use of Deed Restrictions, 56–57.

56 Ibid., 20–22.

57 Ibid., 57.

58 Shirley Weiss et al., Residential Developer Decisions, 34.