C6 Zoning in NYC: General Central Commercial Districts

C6 is where commercial floor area, community facility floor area and housing floor area diverge the most, so the same lot can have three very different maximum buildings.

What a C6 district is for

C6 districts are General Central Commercial Districts, designed for "the wide range of retail, office, amusement and recreation, service, production and related uses normally found in the central business district and regional commercial centers," while excluding non-retail uses that generate a large volume of trucking (ZR 31-16). They allow housing as well as offices, retail and entertainment, so C6 lots often carry large mixed-use buildings.

Like every C district, a C6 lot has three ceilings: a commercial FAR, a community facility FAR, and a residential FAR taken from the residential equivalent district. In C6 the gap between them can be large. C6-6, C6-7 and C6-9 allow 15.00 for commercial and community facility floor area but use R10 residential bulk, where standard housing is capped at 10.00.

C6 FAR by district

Commercial FAR: ZR 33-122. Community facility FAR (also the cap for lots with both commercial and community facility uses): ZR 33-123. Residential equivalent: ZR 34-112. Residential FAR for standard residences: ZR 23-22. * Not listed separately in that table, so the number of the district without the suffix applies under ZR 11-25. ZR 33-12 adds that C6-1A may not exceed its FAR by more than 50 percent, and in C6-4X a floor area bonus is only allowed for a public plaza. Within Manhattan Community Board 7, R10-equivalent commercial districts without a letter suffix are capped at 10.0 (ZR 33-12). The Resolution also lists C6-1G, C6-2G, C6-2M, C6-4M and C6-4.5 and C6-5.5 designations (ZR 11-122 district list); they carry their own rules and are not covered here. Special purpose districts such as Midtown change many C6 numbers.

Bonuses and caps

• Except where the Resolution expressly allows more, FAR may not exceed the ZR 33-12 amount by more than 20 percent (ZR 33-12).
• No floor area bonuses are permitted in the contextual districts C6-2A, C6-3A, C6-3D, C6-3X and C6-4A (ZR 33-12).
• In C6-4X, a bonus is only allowed for a public plaza under ZR 33-13 (ZR 33-12).
• For residential floor area, plaza and arcade bonuses are not permitted in districts whose residential equivalent is an R10 or R11 district with a letter suffix, such as C6-4A and C6-4X (ZR 34-221).

Housing in C6, including affordable and senior housing

Residential portions of buildings use the bulk of the residential equivalent (ZR 34-112, 35-23). The higher "qualifying affordable housing or qualifying senior housing" column of ZR 23-22 therefore applies: 5.01 in C6-1 (R7-2), 3.90 in C6-1A (R6), 7.20 in C6-2 and C6-2A (R8 and R8A), 9.02 in C6-3 and C6-3A (R9 and R9A), 10.80 in C6-3D and C6-3X (R9D and R9X), 12.00 in the R10-equivalent districts, 15.00 in C6-11 (R11) and 18.00 in C6-12 (R12). In C6-2, outside Mandatory Inclusionary Housing areas and within 100 ft of a wide street, a UAP development or qualifying senior housing can reach 8.64 (ZR 23-22). See how UAP works.

Uses allowed in C6

Uses are classified into Use Groups I to X, a structure in effect since June 6, 2024 (ZR 11-24, 32-00). For C6 the Use Group tables show:

• Residences (Use Group II): permitted, including apartment hotels and affordable independent residences for seniors (ZR 32-121).
• Offices (Use Group VII): permitted; laboratories are permitted if they meet Building Code Section 427, others by special permit (ZR 32-171, 32-173).
• Hotels (Use Group V): listed with conditions; new 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 (ZR 32-151, 32-153).
• Retail, entertainment and assembly (Use Groups VI and VIII): broadly permitted, including theaters, arenas and stadiums with the conditions the tables note (ZR 32-161, 32-181).
• Production (Use Group X): many light production uses are permitted, limited to 10,000 sq ft of floor area per establishment on the ground floor with no limit above it (ZR 32-201, 32-202). Warehouses, self-service storage and trucking terminals are not permitted (ZR 32-191).
• Mixed buildings: commercial uses may share a floor with homes or sit above them, if there is no access between the uses on residential floors; amusement and recreation facilities cannot be above dwelling units, and neither can eating or drinking places outside Manhattan (ZR 32-422). Conversions of dwelling units to commercial use are not allowed in buildings built before June 6, 2024 (ZR 32-422).

Height and setback

• Contextual C6 districts (C6-1A, C6-2A, C6-3A, C6-3D, C6-3X, C6-4A, C6-4X) map to residence districts with a letter suffix or to R6 (C6-1A). Where the equivalent has a letter suffix, all buildings follow ZR 23-43 for that equivalent (ZR 33-03). Examples for standard residences: R8A-equivalent C6-2A has a 95 ft maximum base height and 125 ft maximum building height; R9X-equivalent C6-3X within 100 ft of a wide street has a 105 ft minimum base height and 175 ft maximum height; R10A-equivalent C6-4A within 100 ft of a wide street has a 215 ft maximum height (ZR 23-432).
• C6 districts without a suffix use the sky exposure plane in ZR 33-432 for commercial and community facility buildings: front wall up to 85 ft or six stories, whichever is less, then a 2.7 to 1 plane on narrow streets or 5.6 to 1 on wide streets, with a 20 ft initial setback on narrow streets and 15 ft on wide streets.
• Towers: in C6-4, C6-5, C6-6, C6-7, C6-8, C6-9, C6-11 and C6-12 a tower covering up to 40 percent of the lot (up to 50 percent on lots of 10,500 sq ft or less, on a sliding scale to 41 percent below 20,000 sq ft) may penetrate the sky exposure plane, with street setbacks set in ZR 33-451 (ZR 33-451, 33-454). In C6-1, C6-2 and C6-3 the tower rule applies to community facility buildings (ZR 33-453). C6-6, C6-7, C6-9, C6-11 and C6-12 also have alternate tower rules for lots bounded by two or more streets, allowing up to 55 percent lot coverage under conditions (ZR 33-455).

Parking

All C6 districts are in the ZR 36-21 group where no accessory parking is required for commercial or community facility uses (ZR 36-21). Residential parking rules are separate; see parking after City of Yes.

A worked example: 20,000 sq ft lot in C6-2

C6-2 allows 6.00 commercial FAR, 6.50 community facility FAR, and R8 residential bulk: 6.02 standard, or 7.20 for the part of a lot within 100 ft of a wide street (ZR 33-122, 33-123, 34-112, 23-22). Take a 20,000 sq ft lot entirely within 100 ft of a wide street.

• Office building: 20,000 x 6.00 = 120,000 sq ft.
• Community facility building, for example a school or medical office: 20,000 x 6.50 = 130,000 sq ft.
• Market-rate residential building: 20,000 x 7.20 = 144,000 sq ft.
• Outside an MIH area, a UAP building can reach 8.64: 20,000 x 8.64 = 172,800 sq ft, if the 28,800 sq ft above the standard 144,000 is permanently affordable (ZR 23-22, 27-111).
• Mixed building with 20,000 sq ft of retail on two floors: the total cannot exceed the greatest FAR permitted for any use present. With retail and standard housing, that is 7.20, so up to 124,000 sq ft of housing fits beside the retail (144,000 - 20,000) (ZR 35-31).

C6 zoning FAQ

Related pages

• C4 zoning
• C5 zoning
• Residential equivalents in commercial districts
• R8 zoning
• UAP explained