Certificate of appropriateness

A certificate of appropriateness is the Landmarks Preservation Commission's approval for significant work affecting a designated building or a property in a historic district — the full-review instrument, issued after a public hearing, for projects that go beyond what staff-level permits cover. The standard is appropriateness to the protected character: a judgment applied to the specific proposal, not a checklist.

In a property's paper trail, certificates and their conditions document how the building's protected status has been negotiated over time — what was approved, what was modified, what obligations attached. For projects, the certificate is a schedule item that precedes buildings-department permits: on designated fabric, the preservation approval comes first.