Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1903 — MANY MILLIONS INVOLVED. [ARTICLE]

MANY MILLIONS INVOLVED.

Ktw York City to Sue 1,000 Tenement Owners. In New York suits are being prepared in the corporation counsel's office against no less than 1,000 tenement owners for alleged violations of a sanitary clause of tits tenement house law. Expenditures aggregating perhaps $10,000,000 binge on these suits. Tenement bouse owners have as a rule found no fault with the provisions of the law. Now, however, the first serious concerted attempt to nullify a provision of the tenement house act is to be made. All the alleged violations of the sanitary clause occur in structures built under the provisions of the old law, since the so-called “new law” buildings are inspected so thoroughly as their constraeffop progresses that any illegal attempt <> n the part of a builder ia straightway detected and remedied. But it is not the provisions relating to or air or a score of other important regulations which have led to the combination to fight the law; it is solely a matter of sanitation. Differences of opinion exist aa to the number of tenements against which violation is chargeable. The property owners concerned estimate that no less than fi.QOO houses are affected, while the Tenement House Commission places the number at about 0,000. Argument also has arisen as to the cost of remedying aach case, the owners stating that It would be about $2,000, while the Tenement House Commission believes SI,OOO to be a liberal estimate. From the viev,point of the property owner, 9,000 houses each subjected to an expenditure of $2,000 would mean to ths»~ a cost of $ 18,000,000. The estimate of cost made by the Tenement House Commission is said to be about $6,000,000. It is contended by the men who own the tenement houses which are nnder the ban of the law that a change from the sanitary conditions complained of would involve a useless expense, since no more healthfulness might be obtained thereby.