The First Village Zoning: The Three Zones
There were twelve sections in the law, the first four of which divided the village into three numbered zones, each given a land use designation.(1) The zones are shown on the accompanying map, which, although unsigned, was almost certainly drawn by Carl Crandall, the civil engineering professor at Cornell who served as village engineer until the early 1960s.
Zone 1 took up three-quarters of the roughly 280 acres of land in the village. It allowed for one or two-family “dwellings” along with a list of other permissible uses. These were enumerated in Section 2 of the law:
- “A street railway right of way” to accommodate the trolley running along Highland Road in the 1920s;
- “A school house operated for the convenience of the residents of the Village,” referring to the recently opened Cayuga Heights School;
- “Any municipal purpose” which was left unspecified;
- “A church” and “A library,” although neither yet existed;
- “Truck gardening” probably to accommodate the gardening interests of some homeowners;
- “The office of a doctor, surgeon, dentist, lawyer, architect, musician or artist provided that he reside on the premises and that the building be designed to be in character with the district”;
- “Boarding or renting rooms . . . accessory to the principal use as a home”;
- “Inconspicuous” real estate signs;
- “A restaurant or tearoom” subject to approval of neighbors residing within 300 feet of a property;
- the small portion of Lake View Cemetery in the southwest corner of the village.
Section 3 specified that within Zone 2 “Club Houses” were permitted referring to the Country Club of Ithaca then located between Highland and Triphammer roads in the southeast quadrant on the village map, as well as to Cornell fraternities and sororities. According to a commercially published directory, by 1925 there were four fraternities within Zone 2, located on Cayuga Heights, Highland, and Wyckoff roads.
Also allowed in Zone 2 were apartment houses of which there also happened to be four. Three of these were occupied by no more than two or three people; the fourth was the French chateau style building with six apartments at 107 Cayuga Heights Road across the street from the Sigma Chi fraternity house. Exactly 100 “householders” were listed by names and addresses in the directory as residing in the village in the spring of 1925.(2) In addition to the four fraternities, the four apartment houses and the country club, these included 91 residential homeowners, of whom 83 were men and 8 were women. How many of these addresses may have been considered two-family homes is not known nor how many of the owners took in boarders or rented rooms, likely some to Cornell students. The total village population in 1925 was 370.(3) |
Zone 3, located between Zones 1 and 2, is cross-hatched on the map. It was a strip of land 75 feet wide south of the middle of Kline Road between Highland and Overlook Roads. In Section 4 of the law it was envisioned as a small commercial district for “such businesses as may be conducted without unreasonable noise, odors, or disorder and without conspicuous display of advertising providing that the buildings to be used for such purposes be in keeping with the character of the neighborhood.”
Interestingly, no one ever took advantage of the business opportunities Zone 3 presented. Although the possibility of a gas station being built on the triangle of land between Kline and Wyckoff roads at Cayuga Heights Road on land that Jared Newman owned was raised a few years after the zoning law went into effect, in 1929 he and his wife deeded the land to the village, having donated Sunset Park the year before.(4)
Interestingly, no one ever took advantage of the business opportunities Zone 3 presented. Although the possibility of a gas station being built on the triangle of land between Kline and Wyckoff roads at Cayuga Heights Road on land that Jared Newman owned was raised a few years after the zoning law went into effect, in 1929 he and his wife deeded the land to the village, having donated Sunset Park the year before.(4)
These zone, or district, definitions affirmed the residential character of Cayuga Heights as established by the founders Newman and Blood. In December 1925, one day before the village board passed the law, Jared Newman wrote to John Bentley Jr., the village president—as the office of mayor was then known, saying he hoped that it would be applied flexibly within Zone 1 to such properties as those in the subdivision he called White Park. Newman explained that he wanted someday to erect a hotel and build apartments there and that he also hoped someone like his friend and neighbor local attorney Sherman Peer might be able to sell a large family home for use as a sorority.(5)
However, these possibilities, along with Newman’s hope to develop a space for small retail business in Zone 3, remained unrealized. Like Charles Blood, Jared Newman would struggle to get rid of his remaining Cayuga Heights real estate during the Depression before failing financially. He died in 1937, one year before his former partner, leaving unsold land that was auctioned off just outside the village boundary.(6)
However, these possibilities, along with Newman’s hope to develop a space for small retail business in Zone 3, remained unrealized. Like Charles Blood, Jared Newman would struggle to get rid of his remaining Cayuga Heights real estate during the Depression before failing financially. He died in 1937, one year before his former partner, leaving unsold land that was auctioned off just outside the village boundary.(6)
ENDNOTES
(1) Village of Cayuga Heights, Tompkins County, New York, Zoning Ordinance, n.d., six pages measuring 3 x 5 inches printed and distributed to village residents in 1926.
(2) The Village of Cayuga Heights, Ithaca, New York (Ithaca: Cornell Publications Printing Co., May 1, 1925).
(3) John J. Chartres, Examiner, Report to Honorable Morris S. Tremaine State Comptroller of an Examination of the Accounts and Fiscal Affairs of the Village of Cayuga Heights, Tompkins County, N. Y., March 1, 1926 – January 6, 1929, 1.
(4) BOTVCH, Regular Meeting Minutes, November 19, 1928: https://lfweb.tompkins-co.org/laserfiche/DocView.aspx?db=CayugaHeights&docid=323010, and a copy of the indenture dated January 9, 1928 by which Jared Newman and his wife Jane Newman gave the village the land on which Sunset Park is located.
(5) Jared Newman to “Prof. John Bentley, Jr., President Cayuga Heights Village, 330 The Parkway, Ithaca, N.Y.,” December 9, 1925, reproduced by Carol Sisler for Folder 5, “Correspondence of Charles Blood and Jared Newman, 1916-1937,” Cayuga Heights Collection, V-61-1-1, The History Center in Tompkins County from the Jared Treman Newman Papers, Collection 2157 held at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
(6) Sisler, Enterprising Families, 120.
(1) Village of Cayuga Heights, Tompkins County, New York, Zoning Ordinance, n.d., six pages measuring 3 x 5 inches printed and distributed to village residents in 1926.
(2) The Village of Cayuga Heights, Ithaca, New York (Ithaca: Cornell Publications Printing Co., May 1, 1925).
(3) John J. Chartres, Examiner, Report to Honorable Morris S. Tremaine State Comptroller of an Examination of the Accounts and Fiscal Affairs of the Village of Cayuga Heights, Tompkins County, N. Y., March 1, 1926 – January 6, 1929, 1.
(4) BOTVCH, Regular Meeting Minutes, November 19, 1928: https://lfweb.tompkins-co.org/laserfiche/DocView.aspx?db=CayugaHeights&docid=323010, and a copy of the indenture dated January 9, 1928 by which Jared Newman and his wife Jane Newman gave the village the land on which Sunset Park is located.
(5) Jared Newman to “Prof. John Bentley, Jr., President Cayuga Heights Village, 330 The Parkway, Ithaca, N.Y.,” December 9, 1925, reproduced by Carol Sisler for Folder 5, “Correspondence of Charles Blood and Jared Newman, 1916-1937,” Cayuga Heights Collection, V-61-1-1, The History Center in Tompkins County from the Jared Treman Newman Papers, Collection 2157 held at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
(6) Sisler, Enterprising Families, 120.