CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. The Joint Legislative Committee on Housing, presents this intermediate report of its work to date with recommendations for legislation. Your Committee was appointed at the regular session of the Legislature, April 18, 1919, and immediately began the taking of testimony and as a result a special session of the legislature was called for June 16, 1919 by Governor Alfred E. Smith to consider Housing conditions and legislation. The Committee recommended and the Legislature adopted the following: 1. An amendment to the Tenement House Law to permit the remodelling of dwellings for occupancy by not more than four families. 2. An act permitting savings banks to make building loans with proper safeguards. 3. A resolution urging the representatives in Congress from this State to secure Federal Legislation extending to home owners opportunities similar to those afforded by the Federal Farm Loan Act. 4. A resolution urging members of Congress from this State to seek legislation exempting bonds of the Land Bank of the State of New York from Federal taxation. 5. An act requiring twenty instead of ten days notice to be given before dispossessing a tenant. 6. An act permitting the Municipal Court to stay the execution of dispossess warrants for twenty days instead of five days. The Committee continued its work through the summer and fall of 1919 taking testimony in New York, Albany, Schenectady, Syracuse Rochester, Buffalo and Washington, D. C. At the regular session of the Legislature of 1920 the Committee recommended the following: 1. An act to exempt the interest on mortgages from the State Income Tax. 2. A resolution memorializing Congress to make a similar exemption of interest on mortgages from the Federal Income Tax. Neither of these was adopted by the Legislature. |