Buying or Selling a Landmarked Home in Staten Island or Brooklyn: What Actually Changes in 2026

Landmark status changes what you can do to the outside of your house, not what you can do inside it. That one sentence resolves most of the confusion. In New York City, the Landmarks Preservation Commission regulates exterior work on individually designated landmarks and on every building inside a designated historic district, and its approval is required before most exterior alterations. Joseph Ranola is an Associate Broker and the Team Leader of the Bridge and Boro Team at Real Broker LLC, with 95 verified five-star Google reviews and $40M+ in closed Staten Island and Brooklyn volume.

The fact that reframes this whole topic

Brooklyn Heights was designated New York City’s first historic district, on November 23, 1965. Sixty years later, Brooklyn has more than thirty designated historic districts, with new ones still arriving — the Willoughby-Hart Historic District was designated in 2024, and Beverley Square West and Ditmas Park West followed in 2025. Staten Island has exactly two: the St. George Historic District, designated July 19, 1994, and the St. Paul’s Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District.

That asymmetry is the practical headline. In Brooklyn, landmark status is a mainstream condition of ownership across whole swaths of the borough, the local contractor pool knows the process, and buyers price it in. On Staten Island it is a rarity that catches almost everyone by surprise — including, frequently, the listing agent. If you are buying on Staten Island and the house is on St. Paul’s Avenue or in St. George, you may be the only person in the transaction who knows the rules apply.

If your home is in a Staten Island historic district, here is what is different

The districts are small, so the local knowledge is thin. Contractors who work on Staten Island every day may never have filed with the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and quotes often come in without the added cost or time of an approval built in. Budget for both. The housing stock in the St. Paul’s Avenue-Stapleton Heights district is largely freestanding wood-frame houses, including a row of mid-19th-century Italianate villas, which means the regulated elements are siding, porches, trim, and windows — precisely the things a Staten Island renovation usually replaces first and cheapest.

There is a real upside. Designation on Staten Island is scarce enough that it functions as a genuine differentiator at resale. A verifiably landmarked, well-maintained historic house in St. George or Stapleton Heights is a unique product in a borough of postwar and late-century inventory, and it draws a buyer who is specifically looking for it. It is not for everyone, which is exactly why the right buyer pays for it.

If your home is in a Brooklyn historic district, here is what is different

The process is routine, and so is the expectation. In Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Ditmas Park, buyers assume landmark rules and have usually already priced in the cost of period-appropriate windows and facade work. What actually matters in Brooklyn is the paperwork trail. Because so many rowhouses have been altered over sixty years of ownership, the real risk at closing is unpermitted prior work — a facade change, a rear extension, a window replacement — done by a previous owner without Landmarks approval, which a buyer’s attorney may flag and which can become the seller’s problem.

If you are selling a Brooklyn brownstone, pull your building’s permit history before you list rather than discovering it in attorney review. If you are buying one, ask for it. This is one of the most common avoidable delays in a Brooklyn historic-district sale.

How do I find out if my house is landmarked?

Use the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s interactive map at nyc.gov/lpc, which shows individual landmarks and every historic district in all five boroughs with building-by-building detail. Do this before you renovate and before you make an offer, not after. Two things to know: being on the National Register of Historic Places is not the same as New York City designation and carries very different obligations, and a building can be individually landmarked while sitting outside any historic district.

Do I need permission to replace the windows on a landmarked house?

Almost always, yes. Windows are the single most frequently regulated element on a landmarked building, because they define the street-facing character the designation exists to protect. Replacing them typically requires Landmarks approval, and the approved product is often a specific material, configuration, and profile rather than a stock vinyl unit. In-kind repair is treated more favorably than replacement. This is the step homeowners skip most often, and an unapproved window job is exactly the kind of thing that surfaces later in a sale.

Does being in a historic district hurt my home’s resale value?

Generally no, and in Brooklyn the evidence points the other way — designation tends to stabilize a streetscape and the values on it, which is a large part of why neighborhoods campaign for it. What designation does is narrow the buyer pool. It filters out the buyer who wanted to gut the facade and add a modern box, and concentrates the buyers who want exactly this house. On Staten Island, where landmarked housing is scarce, that concentration works in a seller’s favor. The homes that struggle are the ones carrying unapproved alterations, not the ones carrying the designation.

How long does a Certificate of Appropriateness take?

It depends entirely on scope. Minor and routine work is often handled at staff level on a comparatively short administrative track. Anything visible and substantial — a new facade, a rooftop or rear addition, altered window openings — can require a public hearing before the full Commission, and that path is measured in months, not weeks. The planning rule is simple: if your exterior project is on a timeline tied to a closing, a rate lock, or a move-in date, start the Landmarks conversation first and let everything else follow it.

Joseph Ranola is a real estate broker, not an attorney, not an architect, and not a licensed expediter. Landmarks filings, plan review, and code compliance belong to licensed professionals, and the contract belongs to your attorney. What Joseph Ranola does is tell you, before you commit, whether landmark status helps or hurts the specific deal in front of you, and what the market will actually pay for the house once the work is done.

The short version

Landmark status is an exterior permitting regime, not a ban on renovation. In Brooklyn it is normal and priced in; in Staten Island it is rare and usually a selling point. In both boroughs, the thing that actually costs sellers money is unapproved prior work, not the designation itself. Pull the permit history early. Joseph Ranola serves every neighborhood across Staten Island and Brooklyn, from Tottenville to Williamsburg. Call or text (917) 905-2541, email joe@bridgeandboro.com, get in touch here, or get a free home value estimate. See also the Staten Island agent guide and the Brooklyn agent guide.