New Dorp-Midland Beach, Staten Island

Flood exposure is the defining fact in New Dorp-Midland Beach's records. Just under half of its roughly 9,200 tax lots — 48% — fall inside the federally mapped Special Flood Hazard Area, a share well above what's typical elsewhere on the island. That map governs insurance and construction requirements rather than describing any single event, and it sits alongside a building stock that is mostly older: the median recorded construction year is 1965, with 23% of buildings dated before 1940 and 35% raised in the postwar boom years between 1945 and 1975. Only 20% of the record dates from 2000 or later, so most of what's on file predates current flood-plain construction standards.

The building-class record leans heavily toward one- and two-family construction: 61% of buildings are classed as one-family homes and 20% as two-family homes, with 11% carrying a vacant classification. Land-use coding tells a similar story — 81% of lots fall under one- and two-family use, 11% are recorded as vacant, and 3% are coded commercial or office. Height is uniform across the neighborhood: the median building is 2 stories, and not one recorded structure rises past 6 floors. Historic-district coverage is absent from the file at 0%, meaning nothing here currently carries that designation on record.

Residential use covers 84% of lots, supporting 13,690 housing units across the neighborhood's tax lots, and typical parcels run modest — a median of 3,450 square feet, with the largest tenth of lots reaching 6,000 square feet or more. Under current zoning, 82% of lots carry unused floor-area capacity relative to what their district allows, with a median residual of 0.3 FAR — headroom that exists on paper even where flood rules add cost to using it. New Dorp-Midland Beach borders Grasmere-Arrochar-South Beach-Dongan Hills, Oakwood-Richmondtown, and Todt Hill-Emerson Hill-Lighthouse Hill-Manor Heights, and per-lot detail for any of them is available in PearlAudit's records.

Put together, the numbers describe a neighborhood shaped as much by its flood map as by its age. A 1965 median build date, a 2-story ceiling, and a near-total absence of anything taller or newer than that mean the housing stock reflects mid-century rebuilding after the prewar decades — while the 48% flood share means new construction or major renovation on nearly half its lots has to reckon with federal flood-plain rules rather than ordinary permitting alone. The 3% of lots coded for commercial or office use is a minor share, keeping the area's character close to what its land-use numbers already show: overwhelmingly residential.