Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn
The 4+1 is really just the post war version of the 1910's-1920's courtyard apartment building, which also was a scale and density changer for many neighborhoods as they replaced frame houses from the 1800s. They were filled with cheap apartments, and because of their time frame for construction, have no off-street parking what-so-ever. ...
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The courtyard buildings have amenities like green space, common space, respectful design, pedestrian scale, multiple points of entrance, apartments that could get natural light and a mix of different apartment sizes. These are all pluses. In contrast, 4+1s lack green space, the common space is a vestibule, they have one entrance, apartments are often dark, and they're pretty much all studios or one beds. 4+1s are expressly car-oriented by virtue of their car level; if your neighbor has a car, you're probably going to have one too. Courtyard buildings, by virtue of their time period, had to be transit oriented to be viable, since, as you say, there wasn't widespread car ownership. 4+1s were built irrespective of transit because of the car culture then and now. 4+1s create parking demand more than most buildings.
And yes, they are explicitly an exploitation of the zoning code. The SOLE reason their parking floor is sunken and unoccupied is to subvert the intent of the fire and zoning codes. Nobody was designing these codes with the idea of a sunken parking floor.The problem is not the density, it's that they cut every possible corner to maximize return on investment. Courtyards were built to a pretty high quality standard, and most of them are still really solid. 4+1s are built to the lowest standard acceptable; thin drywall, hardly any trim, ugly, leaky PTAC units for HVAC, cheap metal-frame windows. All in the name of maximizing developer profit, which has left tenants and management to deal with the problems for the last 40 years. I don't have a problem with contemporary 5 or 6 stories, or high rises, (save for their lack of articulation) because they had to be built to a higher standard; this form was expressly designed so they could be built to a lower standard than intended for units like these.
As to "it's a deficiency in the zoning and building codes, not ill-will by the developers, whose very job it is to maximize return on the equity invested, be it their equity or someone elses" - the idea that developers must build to the lowest acceptable standard with profit above all else is exactly what results in so much crap development. That maximizing profit just means putting all that deficiency on follow-up users to correct. It's extracting value from the users, not providing affordable housing. Not to mention that many of the developments did in fact break code and sought variations after-the-fact. The fact that some developers take a little responsibility instead of just taking that attitude is why we actually have some quality development.
4+1s should serve as a lesson that density can't be held above standards, careful planning, and a responsibility to users. That was a big part of the problem with public housing and modernist planning in general.
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