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New York City · guides

For anyone asking what could go here

Built against allowed: the floor area ratio

The single most useful number on a New York lot, and one no other city in this product publishes. The Empire State Building is at 308% of what its own zoning now allows.

Floor area ratio is the built floor area divided by the lot area. New York publishes both the ratio built and the ratio allowed, on every lot, and no other city in this product does.

Why the pair is worth more than either

A lot built to 2.1 where the zoning allows 10 has unbuilt capacity on paper. A lot built to 30.79 where the zoning allows 10 is three times over what could be built there today, which means it was built before the rule and could not be rebuilt as it stands.

The Empire State Building, worked

Built floor area ratio 30.79 against an allowed 10: 308%. That is not an error in the data. The tower went up in 1931 and the zoning resolution that governs the lot arrived thirty years later, so the building is lawful and unreproducible at once.

What the number cannot tell you

What may actually be added to a lot depends on the whole zoning resolution - the district, the overlays, the special districts, the height and setback rules, and whatever bonuses or restrictions attach to the site. The ratio is where that question starts, not where it ends, and the report says so rather than implying a buildable number.

Counts run 12 September 2026.

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