R5B Zoning District — New York City

Few designations in this batch sit on smaller ground than this one. The median lot runs just 2,000 square feet, and even the largest recorded parcels reach only 3,197 square feet — the tightest recorded lot fabric of any designation in this batch. On that ground, the file still counts 87,813 homes across roughly 31,000 tax lots, a large housing total achieved through sheer lot count rather than height or size. That tightness is not an isolated data point: both the median and the largest recorded parcels here fall below every other designation profiled in this batch, describing ground that was platted small from the start. Even the housing total on that ground stands out — 87,813 recorded homes is a large figure for any designation in this batch, let alone one built on lots this small.

Two-family building classifications lead the recorded stock at 51%, ahead of walk-up apartment buildings at 23% and one-family homes at 14%. By land use, one- and two-family parcels cover 66% of these lots, multi-family walk-up use another 23%, and mixed residential-and-commercial parcels 6%. Construction is old and settled: 72% of buildings on record predate 1940, and the median construction year is 1927. Only 19% date from the 1945-1975 postwar boom, and just 4% have gone up since 2000 — among the quieter recent-construction shares recorded in this batch, on ground that was evidently built out early and has stayed that way since.

Height matches the age of the stock: a median of 2 stories, with 0% of recorded buildings rising above 6 floors. The federal flood map places 0% of these lots inside the mapped Special Flood Hazard Area, and 3% carry historic-district status on record — a small minority of the roughly 31,000 lots carrying this designation. Across the designation, that combination of old age, low height, and minimal flood or landmark overlap reads as a settled, low-intensity part of the record.

The development ledger shows most lots carrying some unused capacity on record — 79% record floor area below their allowance — though the median residual is a modest 0.5 FAR, in keeping with ground this tightly platted. None of that unused capacity changes what is already built; it is a description of the gap between recorded floor area and each lot's allowance, not a claim about future construction. That gap also sits on some of the tightest ground in this batch, meaning any additional recorded floor area there would have to fit on already small parcels. Each lot's own page carries its recorded specifics individually; the floor-area and height rules that govern the designation, with their citations, sit in the tables above.