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rental limit would include houses not requiring registration. The fixing of a
rental limit must necessarily act as an incentive to raise the rent of rooms in
order to claim exemption from the By-laws. As the number of rooms in a
separate dwelling or letting decreases, the rental per room increases, so that
fixing a limit at the higher rental of a one-room dwelling must necessarily act
as an incentive to increase the number of one-room dwellings and diminish the
number of dwellings of more than one room in a house, Rooms on the topmost
storey are usually let at the lowest rental and to the poorest tenants; if the
lowest standard of the topmost storey be adopted nearly all tenement houses
will be exempted, if the highest standard of the ground or first floor be
adopted nearly all tenement houses will be registerable. It is obvious that a
pecuniary standard presents many difficulties.
The essential point that necessitates legislation is the degree of subdivision
in subletting to which a house is subjected, and this degree is calculable from
(1) the number of dwellings in the house, and (2) the number of rooms in
each dwelling. But as a house is not usually sublet all in one-room dwellings,
or all in two, three, four, or more room dwellings, an average can be struck
and an exemption made where the number of separate dwellings in which the
house is sublet does not exceed one-third or one-fourth of the total number of
habitable rooms in the house.
In the list accompanying the letter of the County Council, dated
the 7th October, there are enumerated 69 houses in streets in Highgate New
Town. Of these 69 houses it is stated that 48 would be exempt and 21 not
exempt from the By-laws. When carefully examined, it is found that the
numbers should be 39 exempt and 30 not exempt from the By-laws. When
examined closely it is found that those exempt are certain houses in Lulot
Street, Rectar Street, and Raydon Street, which are constructed with three
rooms on a floor, and are let in floors as completely equipped with sanitary
and domestic arrangements on each floor (for they have sculleries as well as
three habitable rooms) as average flats of the same size.
In order to include this class of dwellings it would be necessary to make
the proviso read, "where the number of separate dwellings in which the house
"is sublet does not exceed one-fourth of the total number of habitable rooms
"in the house, and no such dwelling contains less than three habitable rooms."
In fact, the question resolves itself into at what point of sub-division in
letting the operation of the By-laws should begin. The St. Fancras Borough
Council says that the sub-dividing line should be below the 3-room dwelling.
The London County Council says that it should be above the 3-room dwelling
If the London County Council object to the method of limitation rather
than to the degree then the alternative is a limitation by rental, but this can
be shown to have an infinitely greater effect in excluding a larger number of
dwellings than the sub-division method of limitation.
It is to be presumed that if St. Pancras were to adopt a rental limitation it
would be similar to that of Islington where the exemption is for houses let in
unfurnished rooms at the rate of not less than 4s. 6d. per week and such room
is occupied by not more than two persons, and where the rent of two rooms or
more is at the rate of not less than 7s. 6d. per week, the number of persons