Atlanta Daily World

'Two Door' Exit
Ordinance Base
Of Argument Here

A recently passed ordinance that
requires two exits in all apartment
houses, except high-rise units, was
the object of heated debate Mon-
day at a meeting of the Atlanta
Board of Aldermen.

The friction started when Ald. G.
Everett Millican offered a bill that
would delay until June 1, the en-
forcement of the "two-door" ordi-
nance passed last April by the aldermanic board.

Ald. Millican said the delay would give home-builders and contractors more time to work out solutions and alterations to the one-door apartment units they already had under construction.

The fifth ward alderman also said that the delay would give a specially appointed committee looking into the matter time to report its finding and file its recommendation with the board.

But Alderman Douglas Wood wanted that section of the city's slum clearance code repealed that demanded two entrances to apartment units. Wood said such an ordinance would cause a heavy loss to home-builders throughout the city.

The ordinance in question reads: "Each dwelling unit (other than in high rise apartments) constructed within the City of Atlanta after this date (April 18) shall have at least two means of access and egress; one on the front and one on the rear or side. Reasonable effort will be made for compliance with this requirement in existing residential structures."

Millican said the ordinance's purpose was to rid the city of slum type housing and the "shotgun apartments" that bolster slum areas.

Wood insisted that the two-door section of the slum clearance ordinance should be repealed. He said that "a lot of innocent builders will be hurt by this section of the ordinance."

Millican said the ordinance would help to clear up problems arising when some builders put apartments on a fifty-foot lot, using 47 feet of that space for the house itself.

Millican said he thought it "was a crime" to allow the erection of apartments on a 50-foot lot, "where a gas meter on the back of an apartment hangs over into another person's property. I want to clear up a problem that creates slums."

But, Millican said, he didn't want to be unfair to anyone, thus his delaying bill allowing time to home owners who intend to comply with the "two-door" ordinance and time for a report on the matter from a special five-man committee commissioned to study the advisability of the ordinance.

Woods argued that the "two-door" ordinance was slipped in as little noticed section that was attached to a larger ordinance calling for the placarding of slum dwellings.

Millican's bill delaying enforcement of the "two-door" ordinance passed unanimously. Wood's substitute bill calling for a repeal of the "two-door" ordinance was referred to the five-man committee that presently has the whole situation under study.