The Price of Public Safety
City council debates delaying fire limits due to high brick costs.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In a conversation with a prominent member of our City Council the other day about the establishment of fire limits in this city, we were told that the only reason for delay in action on this important subject was the fact that the price of brick was so exorbitantly high that parties owning building lots within the proposed limits found it impossible to build of brick. The cost of a brick building at the prices charged would be so great that only by levying exorbitant rents could the owner get a fair interest on his investment. There is too much truth in this statement; the price of brick is out of all reason and is doubtless deterring many from creating permanent and substantial fireproof structures in this city. Yet we believe that even with this disadvantage, the reduced cost of insurance on the buildings erected and the higher rent which can be charged merchants will, after close calculation, for a period of say five years, more than compensate for the extra present outlay. For the safety and permanent good of the city it would be far better if not a building were erected in its business center during the next twelve months than to have the now few vacant lots therein encumbered with wooden firetraps and tinder boxes.
“For the safety and permanent good of the city it would be far better if not a building were erected in its business center during the next twelve months than to have the now few vacant lots therein encumbered with wooden firetraps and tinder boxes.”
This 1883 editorial highlights the tension between private development costs and public fire safety, a precursor to the modern Seattle debate over building codes, density, and construction costs that balance safety with affordability.
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