2025 Theses Master's

The Covenants of Queens: Exploring Covenants as an Alternative form of Land Use Control in Queens, NYC

Smith, Summer

In NYC, property deeds and covenants still explicitly exist. These covenants affect land use by regulating what can be built and where it can be built. Covenants in properties today, while they don't restrict the groups of individuals who can live in a certain area, continue to control land use. Covenants are a portion of a deed that is passed to each successor of property. They control how property is used, the density, and in the past, explicitly were used to restrict individuals based on their racial and ethnic group. The results of these exclusions endure in the locations today by establishing a certain character of a neighborhood. Covenants are a secondary source of land use control, above and beyond that of what the city controls through zoning. This, in turn, has consequences for the physical landscape of an area.

Zoning is the main form of land use control in NYC. However, I will research how covenants act as an alternative form of land use control in NYC. My research will investigate how covenants in Queen's property deeds perpetuate land use controls by controlling the characteristics of a home or neighborhood. I will explain how this differs from zoning, which controls land uses (i.e., the type of building that can be built on a plot of land) and building bulk/density.

Covenants primarily control land use by regulating things like yardage, building character, architectural details, or home value. The result of these restrictions and regulations is the establishment of a specific neighborhood character and feel. In Queens, the result of the covenant restrictions and regulations are the creation and maintenance of exclusive, private, garden-style suburban neighborhoods each with its own specific appeal.