House numbers may not seem like the most important part of your project, but if you’re working on a new building or a subdivided lot anywhere in New York City, they’re about to become very significant.
The way that house numbers are issued is going to change after September 16, and that could impact your project.
What Is a Topographical Bureau?
Currently, each borough president’s office has its own Topographical Bureau. One of the responsibilities of that office is assigning official house numbers to new or changed properties.
What’s Changing?
As of September 16, New York City is moving the responsibility for assigning house numbers from the Topographical Bureau borough offices to the Department of City Planning.
Brooklyn’s Topographical Bureau has set September 16, 2026, as the last day it will accept house number applications. After that date, the office won’t take any new submissions. It will spend the rest of the year finishing the roughly 400 applications already in its queue and getting Brooklyn’s records ready to hand off to City Planning. The public counter closes for good on September 17.
While Brooklyn has, to date, been the only borough to make an official announcement about its Topographical Bureau, we are strongly advising clients to use the September 16 date as the date on which all boroughs will stop accepting house number applications.
Will This Impact My Project?
This change impacts anyone who expects to need a house number between October and December 2026. That includes projects headed for a temporary or final certificate of occupancy, projects that need a temporary building identification number for a new DOB NOW filing, and any tax lot that had a subdivision or merger filed with the Department of Finance in the last three years. For any of those projects, you need to submit your application by September 16.
If you miss the deadline, you have two options. Neither are great:
- You can wait until January 1, 2027, and apply through City Planning’s new process.
- You can request emergency consideration from the Borough President’s Office, but that’s not a sure thing. Emergency review will only be available starting in November and will only be granted in a limited number of cases. Submitting a request is no guarantee of approval.
Any pending applications still under review as of January 1, 2027, won’t be completed and will need to start over as new filings with City Planning.
If you have projects in the pipeline that need a house number this fall, now is the time to get those applications in, not later.
