Sunnyside home additions

Most of Sunnyside is built out as attached row houses and small co-op buildings on narrow lots, so the feasibility of an addition comes down to your zoning district and what FAR you have left. Many of these homes sit in R5 or R6 contexts where allowable floor area, required rear yards, and lot coverage caps are the real limits, not your budget. Before we draw anything, we pull the lot's dimensions and zoning to confirm how much buildable area remains and whether a rear extension, a second story, or a cellar conversion gives you the most usable space.

If your home falls inside the Sunnyside Gardens historic district, anything that changes the exterior, even a modest rear addition or a new dormer, needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Landmarks Preservation Commission before the DOB will issue a permit. We plan for that LPC review from the start, matching brick, rooflines, and window proportions to what the district expects so the application moves cleanly rather than coming back with objections.

A typical Sunnyside addition runs through DOB filings as an Alt-1 or Alt-2, with new framing tied into the existing party walls and foundation, upgraded structure where a second story adds load, and mechanicals sized for the larger footprint. We handle the survey, the architectural drawings, the LPC and DOB filings, and the construction itself, so you have one team accountable from the zoning analysis through the final sign-off.