LPC

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates and regulates New York City's individual landmarks, interior landmarks, scenic landmarks, and historic districts. Designation is a separate legal layer from zoning: a designated building or a lot inside a historic district needs LPC approval — from staff-level permits to full commission hearings — before exterior alterations, demolition, or new construction, regardless of what zoning would otherwise allow as-of-right.

For development analysis, LPC status changes everything about feasibility and timeline. It also creates one of zoning's distinctive instruments: a designated landmark's unused floor area may be transferred to a receiving lot in its surrounding area — the lots on the landmark's own block and those across a street or intersection from it — by certification of the City Planning Commission Chairperson under § 75-42 of the Zoning Resolution, with § 74-79 the special permit for larger transfers in the densest commercial and manufacturing districts. A building that only sits inside a historic district is not an individual landmark, and has no such transfer.