C4 Zoning in NYC: General Commercial Districts Explained

Every C4 district has three different floor area limits, one each for commercial, community facility and residential use, and the commercial one is often the smallest.

What a C4 district is for

The Zoning Resolution describes C4 districts as the city's "major and secondary shopping and business centers" with "a substantial number of large stores generating considerable traffic." They are meant to hold the office, amusement, service and production uses found in those centers, but to exclude non-retail uses that generate a large volume of trucking (ZR 31-14).

C4 is not one set of numbers. The residential equivalents table lists 23 C4 districts, from C4-1 to C4-12 with their letter-suffix versions, and each one has three separate limits: a commercial FAR, a community facility FAR, and a residential FAR borrowed from a "residential equivalent" Residence District. The commercial number is often the lowest of the three, so reading only one column is the most common mistake on a C4 site.

C4 FAR by district

Commercial FAR: ZR 33-122. Community facility FAR (also the cap for a lot with both commercial and community facility uses): ZR 33-123. Residential equivalent: ZR 34-112. Residential FAR: ZR 23-21 (R5) and ZR 23-22 (R6 to R12), standard residences only; qualifying affordable or senior housing can go higher, see below. * C4-6A, C4-7A and C4-11A are not listed separately in the commercial or community facility tables, so they take the numbers of C4-6, C4-7 and C4-11 under ZR 11-25 (a district with a suffix follows the rules of the district without the suffix unless a section lists it separately). R11A is not listed separately in the ZR 23-22 FAR table, so it takes the R11 number the same way. Special purpose districts and other area rules can change any of these numbers.

How the three FARs work together

• A building with only commercial uses is limited to the commercial FAR in ZR 33-122. In C4-11 and C4-12, for example, that is 3.40, even though a community facility or residential building on the same lot can go far higher.
• A lot with community facility uses, or with both community facility and commercial uses, follows ZR 33-123. On such a lot the commercial floor area still cannot exceed the ZR 33-122 amount (ZR 33-123).
• Residential floor area follows the bulk rules of the residential equivalent district in ZR 34-112. A purely residential building in a C4 district uses Article III, Chapter 4; a mixed building uses Article III, Chapter 5, which points to the same equivalents (ZR 35-23).
• In a mixed building, each use is held to its own maximum, and the total of all of them cannot exceed the greatest FAR permitted for any one of those uses on the zoning lot (ZR 35-31).
• Floor area bonuses are capped: except where the Resolution expressly allows more, the commercial FAR cannot exceed the ZR 33-12 amount by more than 20 percent, and in C4-6A, C4-7A and C4-11A no floor area bonuses are permitted at all (ZR 33-12).

Affordable and senior housing in C4 districts

Because residential bulk comes from the equivalent district, the City of Yes "qualifying affordable housing or qualifying senior housing" column of ZR 23-22 applies too. For example, C4-2 and C4-3 (R6 equivalent) can reach 3.90; C4-4A, C4-4L and C4-5A (R7A) can reach 5.01; C4-5D (R7D) 5.60; C4-5X (R7X) 6.00; C4-9 (R9) 9.02; C4-6 and C4-7 (R10) 12.00; C4-11 (R11) 15.00; and C4-12 (R12) 18.00 (ZR 23-22). In C4-1, the R5 equivalent allows 2.00 on qualifying residential sites instead of 1.50 (ZR 23-21). See how UAP works for the affordability rules behind the higher column.

Uses allowed in C4

Since June 6, 2024, uses are sorted into ten Use Groups, I through X (ZR 11-24, 32-00). The Use Group tables give each use a symbol per district: permitted, permitted with limitations, special permit, or not permitted, plus notes for size limits (S), extra conditions (P) and open uses (U) (ZR 32-10). For C4 the tables show:

• Residences (Use Group II): permitted, except that in lower density growth management areas in Staten Island, residences on certain C4-1 lots (where the district covers at least four acres of a block) need a City Planning Commission special permit (ZR 32-121, 32-123).
• Offices and laboratories (Use Group VII): business, professional and governmental offices are permitted; laboratories are permitted if they meet Building Code Section 427, and other labs need a special permit (ZR 32-171, 32-173).
• Hotels (Use Group V): listed with conditions. New transient hotels, conversions to hotels, and hotel enlargements of 20 percent or more need a City Planning Commission special permit under ZR 74-152, with listed exclusions such as City or State shelter use (ZR 32-151, 32-153).
• Retail and services (Use Group VI), entertainment (Use Group VIII): broadly permitted; C4 allows uses such as arenas, stadiums and gaming facilities with conditions that C1 and C2 do not (ZR 32-161, 32-181).
• Production (Use Group X): many light production uses are permitted with a size limit of 10,000 sq ft of floor area per establishment on the ground floor, with no limit on floor area above the ground floor (ZR 32-201, 32-202). Warehouses and trucking terminals are not permitted in C4 (ZR 32-191).
• Mixed buildings: in C4, commercial uses may share a story with residences or sit above them if there is no access between the uses on residential floors, but eating or drinking places outside Manhattan and amusement and recreation facilities cannot be above dwelling units (ZR 32-422).

Height and setback

• C4 districts with a letter suffix (C4-2A, C4-3A, C4-4A, C4-4D, C4-4L, C4-5A, C4-5D, C4-5X, C4-6A, C4-7A, C4-11A) map to contextual R6 to R12 districts, so all buildings follow the base height and maximum height rules of ZR 23-43 for the residential equivalent (ZR 33-03). For example, an R7A-equivalent district has a 40 ft minimum base height, a 75 ft maximum base height and an 85 ft maximum building height for standard residences, and 85 ft and 115 ft for qualifying affordable or senior housing (ZR 23-432).
• C4 districts without a suffix use the sky exposure plane of ZR 33-432 for commercial and community facility buildings: in C4-1 the front wall can rise to 30 ft or two stories, whichever is less, with a 1 to 1 plane; in C4-2, C4-3, C4-4 and C4-5 to 60 ft or four stories with a 2.7 to 1 plane on narrow streets and 5.6 to 1 on wide streets; in C4-2F, C4-6, C4-7, C4-8, C4-9, C4-11 and C4-12 to 85 ft or six stories with the same slopes. The initial setback is 20 ft on a narrow street and 15 ft on a wide street (ZR 33-432).
• Towers: in C4-7 a tower covering no more than 40 percent of the lot (more on lots under 20,000 sq ft) may penetrate the sky exposure plane (ZR 33-451, 33-454). In C4-4, C4-5, C4-6, C4-8, C4-9, C4-11 and C4-12 the same tower rule applies to community facility buildings (ZR 33-453).

Parking basics

Required accessory parking for commercial and community facility uses is set by district in ZR 36-21. For offices (parking category A3), the table requires 1 space per 150 sq ft of floor area in C4-1, 1 per 300 in C4-2, 1 per 400 in C4-2A and C4-3, and 1 per 1,000 in C4-4 and C4-5D. None is required in C4-4A, C4-4L, C4-5, C4-5A, C4-5X, C4-6, C4-7, C4-8, C4-9, C4-11 or C4-12. Waivers for small requirements and small lots apply (ZR 36-21, 36-23, 36-25). For housing parking, see parking after City of Yes.

A worked example: 10,000 sq ft lot in C4-4A

C4-4A has a commercial FAR of 4.00, a community facility FAR of 4.00 and an R7A residential equivalent with a standard residential FAR of 4.00 (ZR 33-122, 33-123, 34-112, 23-22).

• All-commercial building: 10,000 x 4.00 = 40,000 sq ft.
• All-residential building: 10,000 x 4.00 = 40,000 sq ft; with qualifying affordable or senior housing, 10,000 x 5.01 = 50,100 sq ft.
• Mixed building with 10,000 sq ft of ground-floor retail: the residential portion can hold up to 30,000 sq ft, because the total cannot exceed the greatest FAR permitted for any one use, 4.00 x 10,000 = 40,000 sq ft (ZR 35-31).
• Height: as an R7A equivalent, 75 ft maximum base height and 85 ft maximum building height for standard residences (ZR 23-432).

Compare a 10,000 sq ft lot in C4-2 (R6 equivalent) on a narrow street more than 100 ft from a wide street: commercial alone could reach 34,000 sq ft (3.40), residential only 22,000 sq ft (2.20). A mixed building could combine 22,000 sq ft of housing with 12,000 sq ft of commercial space, for 34,000 sq ft in total (ZR 33-122, 23-22, 35-31).

C4 zoning FAQ

Related pages

• C6 zoning
• Residential equivalents in commercial districts
• C1 and C2 overlays
• R6 zoning
• R7A zoning
• UAP explained