Neither the members of the committee nor the officials of the Housing and Home Finance Agency indicated in the hearings * * * that this data was irrelevant and misleading. The national chamber, too, accepts the direct comparison of subsidies and overhead costs as valid-and, with the gentlemen referred to in the paragraph above, disagrees with the view that such comparisons are irrelevant and misleading. Senator SPARKMAN. At this point I think it may be well to place in the record a telegram from Mr. William O. Kline, president, Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce, Doylestown, Pa., who offered to come and testify. Also a copy of a letter that Senator Hugh Scott has written to Dr. Weaver, which I promised Senator Scott I would offer for the record. And three other communications that we have received regarding different aspects of the bill. Without objection that will be done. (The material mentioned follows:) [Telegram] Senator A. WILLIS ROBERTSON of Virginia, DOYLESTOWN, Pa., February 4, 1964. Chairman, Senate Banking and Currency Committee, As president of the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce, Bucks County, Pa., for the past 3 years, I strongly denounce the position taken by Mr. Edwin P. Neilan, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and Board Chairman H. Ladd Plumley, in regards to both the Federal urban renewal and public housing program. I am positive they are not speaking for many chambers of commerce throughout the United States to support this vitally needed expanded legislation as proposed by our President, Lyndon B. Johnson. I want to go on record now as unequivocally supporting the expansion of both these programs. I will be glad to appear at your hearing if requested to make my views known in detail. WILLIAM O. KLINE, Doylestown, Pa. U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, February 19, 1964. Hon. ROBERT C. WEAVER, Administrator, Housing and Home Finance Agency, DEAR MR. WEAVER: Although I am not a member, I had hoped to attend this morning's session of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee at which you testified, because I personally wanted to call your attention to a most serious and important problem. Terribly inclement weather, however, delayed my arrival until the time by which you had completed your appearance on the witness stand. In Scranton, Pa., we have an unusual and terribly serious housing problem which has resulted from mine subsidence. Many homes are literally sinking into the ground, or coming apart at the seams, as the wornout mines beneath them begin to cave in. One such home is held together by a cable. The foundation of another is held together by a cog piled on railroad ties. If one took the cog out, the house would collapse. Others are held together by jacks or supported by old telephone poles. Some of the residents have had experience as "propmen" in the mines, meaning they had to stand props to keep the roof up. They are now using this skill to keep their homes up. But many of these homes are already beyond the scope of human ingenuity. These people are not just ill housed, they are hardly housed at all. Their condition is not just serious, it is dangerous. I strongly urge the Urban Renewal Administration to declare areas suffering from mine subsidence as urban renewal areas. Moreover, I respectfully urge that you give serious consideration to two amendments to the Housing Act that have been proposed by Representative Joseph M. McDade which, together with the administrative act of the Urban Renewal Administration urged by me above, would go a long way toward solving this serious problem. With warm personal regards, I am, HUGH SCOTT. Hon. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Jr., RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY, New Brunswick, N.J., January 30, 1964. DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: We were delighted to note in President Johnson's housing and community development message of January 27, his recommendation that the training of local government employees be facilitated by a $25 million annual program of Federal matching grants to the States. As you know, our Bureau of Government Research at Rutgers provides such training services for New Jersey communities. Last year, 30 individual programs were offered, with an enrollment of more than 1,100 persons. Despite the fact that our training activities have increased year after year, we are far from meeting the needs of the State's local communities. All of our programs are required to be self-supporting; fees must be placed high enough to cover both our direct program costs and our administrative expenses. While many communities recognize the value of training for their employees, there are others which do not. The result frequently is that those most in need of help do not receive it. A program of financial aid, such as that suggested by the President, would be a step forward in remedying this situation. If there is any information which we can supply on the basis of our experience in this field, please let me know. We are in contact with about 40 similar bureaus located at other universities across the United States. Most of these organizations sponsor training programs such as ours. They are associated in a loose organization, called the Conference of University Bureaus of Government Research, which might well serve as an information gathering network to support any legislative proposals which might be forthcoming. Sincerely yours, ERNEST C. REOCK, Jr., Director, Bureau of Government Research. ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGIATE SCHOOLS OF PLANNING, February 11, 1964. Re Housing Act of 1964, S. 2468. Chairman, Subcommittee on Housing, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR SPARKMAN: I am writing on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in support of the housing and community development bill now before your subcommittee. We wish particularly to endorse title VII provisions for Federal-State training programs. As an organization representing schools of urban and regional planning in some 19 universities, we want to point out to you the very urgent need for increasing the supply of trained manpower to staff planning and renewal agencies. The number of professionally trained persons taking their first jobs each year has little or no effect in alleviating the steadily mounting shortage of manpower. Even with small gains in numbers completing their training, the increase in number of job openings far outstrips the net increase in professionals entering the job market. Without qualified persons, the housing and community development effort will be unable to realize its full potential. In order to attract top people into the field, it is necessary to have a strong and continuing fellowship program. The present handful of fellowships available specifically for persons choosing a career in city planning, urban renewal, and housing have served a valuable purpose in attracting top people to the field, but until the number of fellowships is greatly increased, this will remain a token effort. City planning and urban renewal training programs are currently understaffed, and deficient in funds to give students needed field experience. The minimum essential facilities for classroom instruction, libraries, and training aids are presently too limited to accommodate an increased enrollment. Many universities have had to institute ceilings on enrollments simply because of serious limitations in personnel and facility budgets. They are unable to compete with the heavily supported educational programs in science, health, technology, and agriculture. Grants for increasing the teaching staff and training facilities go hand in hand with fellowship needs. In addition to these urgent needs for enlarging the training effort, the association is gravely concerned about the pitifully small R. & D. effort going into research on some of the most critical problems this Nation faces in the domestic scene. We feel that a major source of this Nation's strength comes from its great creative research efforts. The universities have traditionally been a moving force in the great breakthroughs. The research presently going into problems of planning, urban renewal, and housing is so minimal that the urban renewal and housing programs cannot begin to achieve their full potential until a great deal more financial support is available for research and development. We endorse the kind of State programs contemplated here, but we direct your attention to the urgent need for basic research at universities which traditionally have been the source of many of our advances in all fields. We also point out that a research effort complements the training effort and assists in bringing new developments into use where they can be most effective. The title VII provision for training and research is a long overdue element in a total program of housing and community development. We hope the subcommittee will press for its adoption. DEAR MR. COAN: You will probably recollect our telephone conversation last week at which time I brought up the question of consideration being given to permitting efficiency apartments in high-rise buildings financed under section 221(d) (3). It is our understanding that in the new bill there is a clause that apartments can be rented to a single person, providing he would be classed as elderly. If we are to erect any high-rise buildings financed under 221(d) (3), we believe it will be necessary that we be permitted to rent to single persons, provided they fall within the certain income levels. I don't know how familiar you are with Draper & Kramer, but we are one of Chicago's oldest real estate and mortgage companies and have been quite active in the redevelopment of Chicago's urban renewal area. Ferd Kramer is the present chairman of ACTION, and as a result we are familiar with what is going on in this field throughout the country. Our Prairie Shores development, built on the near South Side of Chicago on land cleared of one of Chicago's worst slums, is known throughout the country as one of the successful integrated projects, and has, I believe, the reputation of having the lowest rents in any high-rise buildings. You inquired about the rents we were presently charging in a project like Prairie Shores, and when I answered that our rents figured around $37 per room, you said Senator Sparkman or Congressman Rains couldn't understand why they were able to rent at so much lower rents in some project in Baltimore. I have discussed this with Ferd Kramer and he said that he knows of no highrise building in Baltimore that is rented at as low rentals as our Prairie Shores development here. In talking about rents per room, you should recognize that we are figuring a much lower room count than the present FHA count. We figure two rooms for an efficiency, 31⁄2 rooms for a 1-bedroom apartment, 4% or 5 rooms for a 2-bedroom apartment, depending on the area, and six rooms for a 3-bedroom apartment. Our current rents at Prairie Shores, which was financed under FHA section 220, are as follows: Efficiency, $85 to $98. One-bedroom, $106.50 to $140. Our room rental of $37 per room is based on our room count. The loan limits on section 221(d)(3) are, I believe, $2,900 per room, but that is on FHA count and I would guess that on our room count it would figure around $3,500 or $3,600 per room. However, I might say that it will be very difficult to build a high-rise building in this area under $4,000 per room. I mentioned to you on the phone that it would be impossible to operate a building and pay taxes at the kind of rents you talked about. For example, in three of our Prairie Shores buildings, in the last figures we made up, the annual operating costs per room, on our count, figured around $70; administration, $32; maintenance-this varies but would certainly average around $30; and real estate taxes, $70. Our taxes here, up to the present time, have been unusually low. We have other high-rise buildings where the taxes figured twice $70, and I would say that an average would be $100. But using the four figures of $70, $32, $30, and $70, we have $202 annually, which figures over $16 per room per month. Therefore, if there were no financing costs at all, the cost for five rooms would be $80 per month. Figuring the cost of the building at $3,600 per room and the land cost at $100 per room, that would mean that we had costs for building and land of about $3,700 per room, or $18,500 for a five-room apartment. Including amortization. a section 221 (d) (3) loan with an interest rate of 3% percent figures $4.60 per $1,000 annually. Therefore, with a $18,500 cost for a five-room apartment, the financing cost would figure $851 per year, or a little less than $71 per month. Adding the $71 financing cost to the $80 for operation, administration, maintenance, and real estate taxes, we have a total of $151 per month, or $30 per room. The reason that we want to be able to rent to single persons is that, actually, the rent we get from an efficiency apartment is higher per room than from any other size apartment, and therefore reduces the average rent per room in the building. You will note from the rents I gave you on Prairie Shores that the efficiency apartments rented for between $42.50 and $49 per room, and the other apartments averaged less than $37 per room, so that by having the efficiencies, we are able to rent the other apartments at a lower rental. We hope, therefore, that you will be able to make this change in 221(d) (3) in the new housing bill to permit apartments to be rented to single persons, regardless of age. If you require any more information, please do not hesitate to call upon us. Sincerely yours, MAURICE POLLAK, Executive Vice President. Senator SPARKMAN. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Senator BENNETT. Mr. Chairman, before you leave that, I think it might be interesting at this point in the record to insert the text of a speech made by Commissioner William L. Slayton, head of the Urban Renewal Administration, before the Rochester Chamber of Commerce, Rochester, N. Y., on February 14. Senator SPARKMAN. Very well. Without objection, that will be done. (The speech follows:) [From Congressional Record, Feb. 20, 1964] URBAN RENEWAL [Extension of remarks of Hon. Frank J. Horton, of New York, in the House of Representatives, Thursday, Feb. 20, 1964) Mr. HORTON. Mr. Speaker, several times over the last several months I have commented on the urban renewal program, each time clearly indicating my sup port for it. I have taken this position because I believe that community improvement, through the elimination of slum and blight and the causes thereof, is essential to the public welfare. I have said and I repeat that, in my opinion, the Federal Government has a responsibility to help local communities in their efforts to redevelop slum areas, including downtown areas. Last week Commissioner William L. Slayton of the Urban Renewal Administration was in my home city of Rochester to address the chamber of commerce. While there he had an opportunity to visit what he said was one of the finest of all downtown renewal projects that he has seen-the Midtown Plaza project. What makes this project unique is the fact that it was undertaken and completed without any Federal financial assistance. Without the excellent cooperation between private enterprise and local gov ernment, this multimillion-dollar shopping and business complex would not have been possible. However, there are times and situations when even this type of cooperation is not adequate to enable the locality and its citizens to do the job in urban renewal that they want and need to do. Thus it is that Rochester now has in planning or underway five federally assisted urban renewal projects having a total grant reservation or allocation of over $28 million. Like Midtown Plaza, these projects are vitally important to Rochester, and they also represent close cooperation between private enterprise and governmental action. It is obvious that wherever there is a successful project there also is this type of cooperation, and where there is this cooperation there also will be a successful project. This was the theme of Commissioner Slayton's message to the chamber of commerce, which I insert in the Record at this point: “REMARKS BY WILLIAM L. SLAYTON, COMMISSIONER, URBAN RENEWAL ADMINISTRATION, HOUSING AND HOME FINANCE AGENCY AT THE ROCHESTER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, ROCHESTER, N.Y., FEBRUARY 14, 1964 "I am happy to be here today because it gives me an opportunity to discharge a year-old obligation. A year ago I was scheduled to speak in Rochester, but urgent business prevented my trip. So here I am on my very first visit to your city. "What I have seen here impresses me greatly. Your imaginative and successful midtown plaza has received justifiable national acclaim. Your four federally assisted urban renewal projects show a diversity and practicality that augur well for sound contribution to the future growth and health of your city. And your undertaking of a community renewal program, the timetable for renewal achievement in Rochester, is clear evidence of the comprehensive view that your people take of urban renewal and its possibilities. "And I am happy to be here as a guest of your chamber of commerce. There seems to be an effort, eminently lacking in success thus far, I am glad to say, to prove some sort of incompatibility between urban renewal and the social and economic philosophies of business organizations, such as chambers of commerce. Yet compatibility, I believe, is rather the watchword here today, as it is in so many other American cities. "But more of that later. I would like to speak first of the urban renewal program, and give you some idea of its accomplishments. Then I would like to show you how closely we on the Government side have been hewing to the line laid down by Congress in the Housing Act of 1949: 'private enterprise shall be encouraged to serve as large a part of the total need as it can.' "Now, how did the urban renewal program start? Beginning in the 1930's, it became quite apparent to students of the urban scene that our cities were deteriorating at an alarming rate. Exhaustive studies carried out by the Federal Government and voluminous testimony from local businessmen and officials outlined quite clearly the problems involved and indicated the necessary solutions. The findings are still quite valid today. "To a great extent, the growth and persistence of blight has its roots in the inability of private enterprise to rebuild-without aid-the deteriorating parts of the city to meet changing needs and functions of urban areas. There are two basic obstacles. First, the entrepreneur faces the problem of assembling a number of parcels, under diverse ownerships, in order to create a tract large enough to support efficient, modern development and at the same time withstand the effects of adjacent blight. One or two 'holdouts' can and sometimes do block his plans. |