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From: A HgNggg IwRcction_GMddXHLk U.S.DHEW 1975 TRENDS IN HOUSING = LOCAL H CODES Countless communities throughout America are raising critical questions about the adequ ac y and effectiveness of local housing code enforcement programs. Some background on housing regulation may be helpful. I. The History of Housing The first public policies on housing in this country were established during the Colonial period.eriod Many of the early settlers built houses with wooden chimneys and thatched roofs which were the causes of frequent fires. Consequently, several of the colonies passed regulations prohibiting these. One of the first was the Plymouth Colony, which in 1 626 passed a laver stipulating that new houses should not be thatched but roofed with either p p board or p ale and the like. In 1648 wooden or plastered chimneys were prohibited on new houses in New Amsterdam, and chimneys on existing houses were decreed to be inspected regularly. In Charlestown in 1 740, following a disastrous fire, the general assembly passed an act that declared that all building should be of brick or stone, that all yp "tal I" wooded houses must be pulled down by 1 745, and that the use of wood was to be confined to window frames, shutters, and to exterior work. This law was obviously unenforceable because, as we learn from other publications during that period, more Charlestown houses were made of timber than of brick. Social control over housing was exerted in other ways. Early settlers in Pennsylvania frequently dug caves out of the banks of the Delaware River and used these as primitive- type dwellings. Some of these shelters were still to use as late as 1687 when the Provincial Council ordered inhabitants to provide for themselves other habitations: in order to have the said cares or houses destroyed. In some New England communities, around the turn of the 18th century, standards were raised considerably higher by local ordinances. In East Greenwich, it had been the custom to build houses 14 feet square with posts feet high; in 1 727 the town voted that houses shall be built 18 feet square with posts 15 feet high with chimneys of stone or brick as before. During the early days of this country, basic sanitation was very poor, primarily because outdoor privies served as the general means of sewage disposal. The principal problems created by the use of these pdvies involved their nearness to the streets and their easy accessibility to hogs and goats. In 1652, Boston prohibited the buildings of privies within 12 feet of the street. The Dutch of New Amsterdam in 1657 prohibited the throwing of rubbish and filth into the streets or canal and required the householders to Deep the streets clean and orderly. After the early Colonial pedod we pass into an era of very rapid metropolitan growth along e eastern seashore. This growth was due largely to the immigration of people from the �