Community Facility FAR in Residence Districts (ZR 24-11)

The community facility FAR table in ZR 24-11 is one of the biggest sources of hidden floor area in New York residence districts, and one of the most misread.

What "community facility" floor area is

Community facility uses are things like schools, houses of worship, medical offices, libraries, colleges and non-profit institutions. In residence districts they get their own floor area ratio, set in ZR 24-11, separate from the residential FAR in ZR 23-21 (R1 to R5) and ZR 23-22 (R6 to R12). In several districts, mostly the older non-contextual ones, the community facility number is much higher than the residential one. That gap is why a medical office, school or institution can sometimes build a far larger building than an apartment developer on the same lot.

Community facility FAR vs standard residential FAR

Sources: ZR 24-11 tables for community facility FAR; ZR 23-21 and 23-22 for residential FAR (standard residences; qualifying affordable or senior housing and qualifying residential sites can go higher). ZR 24-11 also sets community facility lot coverage, for example 70% on a corner lot and 65% on an interior lot in R6. Special purpose districts can change all of these numbers.

Rules that cut the number down

• R1 and R2: for most community facility uses, the FAR may not exceed the floor area permitted for residential uses in the district. The exceptions are uses that need a special permit under ZR 73-11, 73-13 or 73-18, or bulk modification under ZR 74-902 (ZR 24-111).
• Institutions with sleeping accommodations: in R3 to R5, and in R6 to R9 without a letter suffix, philanthropic or non-profit institutions with sleeping accommodations have their own lower limits: R3 0.50, R4 0.75, R5, R5A and R5B 1.27, R5D 2.00, R6 2.43, R7 3.44, R8 6.02, R9 7.52. In R3-1, R3A, R3X, R4-1, R4A, R4B, R5A, R5B and R5D the same table applies to long-term care facilities. These limits do not apply to qualifying affordable housing, and the CPC can modify them by special permit under ZR 74-903 (ZR 24-111).
• Special areas: ZR 24-112 sets exceptions, for example 5.10 FAR for zoning lots with only community facility uses in R8B districts in Manhattan Community District 8, and a 10.0 cap on all zoning lots in R10 districts (except R10A and R10X) in Manhattan Community District 7.
• Bonuses: ZR 24-10 lists the sections that can raise the number, including floor area bonuses for deep front and wide side yards (24-13), public plazas (24-14) and arcades (24-15).

Mixing community facility and residential floor area

Most projects that use community facility FAR also include apartments. The ZR has two rules, depending on the district.

• Contextual and higher-density districts (R1, R2, R3-1, R3A, R3X, R4-1, R4A, R4B, R5D, R6A, R6B, R6D, R7-2, R7-3, R7A, R7B, R7D, R7X, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12): each use is capped by its own FAR, and the total of all floor area ratios may not exceed the greatest FAR permitted for any one use on the zoning lot (ZR 24-161).
• R3-2, R4, R5, R6 and R7-1 (but not R4-1, R4A, R4B, R5D, R6A, R6B or R6D): if the whole building is bigger than the Column A ratio below, its community facility floor area is held to the Column B ratio. Buildings at or under Column A use the normal ZR 24-11 number. The total still may not exceed the greatest FAR for any use (ZR 24-162). This section does not apply to buildings containing residences and philanthropic or non-profit residences with sleeping accommodations.

Source: ZR 24-162 table. A building segment may be treated as a separate building for this section.

A worked example in R6

Take a 5,000 sq ft interior lot in an R6 district, on a narrow street and more than 100 ft from a wide street.

• All community facility: 5,000 x 4.80 = 24,000 sq ft of floor area (ZR 24-11).
• All residential: 5,000 x 2.20 = 11,000 sq ft (ZR 23-22).
• Apartments plus a ground-floor clinic: the building would be bigger than 2.50 FAR (12,500 sq ft), so the community facility part is capped at 1.00 FAR, or 5,000 sq ft. With the full 11,000 sq ft of residential, the building totals 16,000 sq ft, or 3.20 FAR, which is under the 4.80 maximum for any one use (ZR 24-162).

On the same lot in an R6B district the answer is very different: community facility and residential FAR are both 2.00, so the most you can build is 10,000 sq ft whatever the mix (ZR 24-11, 23-22, 24-161).

Why this matters before you buy

A lot in R6, R7-1, R7-2 or R9 carries a lot more potential floor area for a school, hospital, house of worship or medical office than for housing. Buyers sometimes price that number into a deal as if it were residential, which it is not. In contextual districts like R6A, R7A and R10A the two numbers are the same or nearly so. Height and setback rules also differ for community facility buildings (ZR Article II, Chapter 4), so the full FAR may not fit on every lot.

Community facility FAR FAQ

Related pages

• R6 zoning
• R6B zoning
• R7-1 zoning
• R8 zoning
• What City of Yes changed