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6 Fordham L. Rev. 1 (1937)
Legal Aspects of Low-Rent Housing in New York

handle is hein.journals/flr6 and id is 15 raw text is: FORDHAM LAW REVIEW VOLUME VI JANUARY, 1937 NUMBER I LEGAL ASPECTS OF LOW-RENT HOUSING IN NEW YORK B. H. FOLEY, JR.t W HEN Judge Crouch in the course of his opinion in the case of New York City Housing Authority v. Muller remarked that the ses- sion laws of New York for nearly seventy years past are sprinkled with acts applying the taxing power and the police power in attempts to cure or check the menace of the slums, he expressed a historical fact that is often overlooked in current discussions of the slum clearance and low- rent housing problem. An analysis of the New York housing legislation which has been enacted during the past three-quarters of a century discloses that these laws fall into two classes: those which may be considered as negative, that is, which prohibit or restrict; and those which may be considered as positive, that is, which enable or encourage. It is a far cry from the earliest tenement house law of New York to the latest low-rent housing authority law in this state. Legislative action has noticeably progressed from efforts to protect the health and safety of tenement dwellers to a plan of bringing about the actual elimination of slums and the construc- tion of adequate dwellings for families in the low-income brackets. A discussion of the legal aspects of the low-rent housing program in New York will be aided by a brief examination of the two types of enactments which have in the past characterized the legislative approach to this problem. RESTRICTIVE HOUSING LEGISLATION Tenement House Laws The first important legislation of this type in New York was the Tene- ment House Law of 18672 which prescribed modest standards for the construction and use of residential buildings. It aimed to eliminate and t Director, Legal Division, Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works. 1. 270 N. Y. 333, 1 N. E. (2d) 153 (1936), aff'g, 115 Misc. 681, 279 N. Y. Supp. 299 (Sup. Ct. 1935). 2. N. Y. Laws 1867, c. 908.

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