1922 LTE on Zoning Shows Exclusionary Impulses and Still Echoes Today

Here's an interesting letter to the editor from 100 years ago. About zoning, but before our 1926 zoning scheme, it strikes themes we still see today.

February 10th, 1922

From the morning paper, responding to an editorial in the afternoon paper:

A STATEMENT FROM H. F. BONESTEELE
Helena, Mont., February 9, 1922
To the Editor of the Oregon Statesman - On January 3rd the following editorial appeared In the Capital Journal:

"Salem is famed as one of the most beautiful cities of Oregon.

"The chief feature in Salem's attractiveness is the beautiful civic center, with its stately public buildings and its parked grounds, its shaded avenues, bounded on all sides by fine residences, well kept homes with spacious lawns and ornamental shrubbery.

It is now proposed to destroy the symmetry and harmony of this civic center by sandwiching in a garage and salesroom between fine residences and palatial apartment house.

"The need of restrictive zoning laws was never more apparent to protect residence property against unnecessary business invasion and to maintain the desirability and beauty of the city against those who would commercialise for private profit a community asset and in the process work injury to the city.

"The property in question is in no sense a business location. There are a hundred more suitable sites for garages without invading the choicest residence sections and marring the charm of the civic center sites better adapted to business and the utilization of which would increase adjacent property values instead of depreciate them.

"The city council should, on the grounds of public policy, refuse building permits for such structures. There is said to be an old statute, formerly utilized to prevent the erection of livery stables and saloons in residence quarters as public nuisances, and the same law should be invoked against garages amidst dwellings on the civic center. If this statute proves inadequate, and the owners and builders persist in defying public sentiment, a proper zoning law should be rushed through the council to safeguard our scenic assets and protect property values."

And in reply to this, permit me to say, we dislike very much being accused of anything of this kind and think you are unnecessarily alarmed. In the first place, the Bonesteele Motor Co. (consisting of H. F. Bonesteele and Sons) is permanently located in Salem and expect to be in business there for a great many years, and we would not consider erecting a $30,000 building in any location in Salem against the wishes of any number of people living In the immediate vicinity.

We did not go after this lot on Court street for our location; the proposition was put up to us by the representative of the owner when he learned that we were looking for a location, and as we considered this a favorable location for our business, we bought it.

We had no idea of their being any objection to the kind of business which we are conducting, but when we asked for a building permit we were informed that there was an ordinance passed ten years ago prohibiting this class of business in that district without the consent of the property owners within 150 feet of the proposed building. So whether we build here or not will be entirety up to residents of this district.

As to your charge that we are trying to destroy an asset and commercialize the residence district, I should say you are charging us with trying to do something that has already been done. When the Court apartments were built the district was commercialized and the lot adjoining this apartment building never will be used for anything except commercial purposes, for no one would ever consider building a residence (of the class that would naturally be built there) under the shadow of an apartment house.

Several days ago I talked with Senator McNary In Washington, D. C., about this proposition, and while he seemed to realize that this would be used for some commercial purpose and said he would have no objection to an ordinary store or apartment house, he did have decided objections to an automobile salesroom and service station.

As soon as I return to Salem I will take the matter up with those most concerned and it will rest with them whether the Bonesteele Motor Co. build on Court street, or elsewhere.

H. F. BONESTEELE

There is so much going on here!

Briefly:

• The rhetoric of "invasion," which we see today especially in historic preservation.
  
• The focus on "beauty" and "scenery."
  
• The earlier editorial on January 3rd was titled, "Destroying An Asset." An asset for whom? That earlier editorial engages in a slight of hand by switching between "commercialise for private profit a community asset" and "increase adjacent property values instead of depreciate them." Adjacent property value is also "private profit" rather than community profit or value. In the editorial, property value for a few is cloaked as community asset for many, and current property owners wish to protect incumbency privilege against new arrivals.
  
• Harnessing exclusionary actions to protect class, status, and wealth.
• An early instance of the voracious appetite of our autoism.
  

Separately and relatedly, we might note the normal churn and dynamism of a city. Bonesteele apparently abandoned the site - perhaps Senator McNary's objections alone were sufficient, as he had an interest in the Court Apartments - and the YMCA purchased the lot. They built the "old Y" building, which opened in 1926. That building in turn was, with the Court Apartments, recently demolished. The "new Y" is in construction on this same site and soon will open. (That in fact is a community asset!)

In May of 1922 Bonesteele announced the firm would instead be relocating from the 100 block of South Commercial at Ferry to the 400 block of South Commercial. The building was completed in December, and they opened to the public in January of 1923.

The building on the Sanborn 1926 downtown master

 

The site today, at the driveway and crosswalk

The new garage and offices were on the east side of Commercial street just north of Bellevue, the current site of the driveway, parking garage, and crosswalk at the Civic Center. Very close to what had been proposed as the site for a new Police Station.

Abandoned site from June 2013

We may come back to this in a future note, as there are many themes here of current interest!