Parking guide
Apartments With Parking in Brooklyn: What to Ask
Keeping a car in Brooklyn is a second lease nobody writes down. You pay most of it in hours: the twice-weekly shuffle, the loop around the block, the ten minutes at eleven at night when you still have nowhere to put the thing. This guide covers what your options really are, and the questions that decide whether a garage in a listing is a garage you can use.
Why parking is hard here
Most of Brooklyn's residential buildings went up before private cars were common, and zoning in many neighborhoods makes adding parking afterwards difficult or impossible. So the supply of off-street spaces is roughly fixed while the number of cars is not. That is the whole problem in one sentence.
Alternate side parking, in practice
Street-cleaning rules require you to move your car during posted windows, which in most Brooklyn neighborhoods means at least twice a week. The City suspends them on a published list of holidays and observances, and NYC DOT keeps the current suspension calendar and rules on its own page, in a downloadable form. If you keep a car here, subscribe to it.
Three details in the City’s own guidance save more grief than anything else. DOT suspends alternate side for weather and emergencies as well as holidays, and says to check NYC311 or Notify NYC for those. It restores the rules after a snowfall specifically so streets can be plowed, which is the opposite of what most people assume a snow day means. And when the Department of Sanitation changes street cleaning rules on a block, DOT says DSNY provides a weeklong grace period after new signage goes up, so a sign you have read a hundred times can quietly change.
How to read a parking sign
This is the skill that separates people who keep a car here comfortably from people who fund the city one ticket at a time. Five rules, all of them from NYC311’s own alternate side page.
Find the broom
Alternate side parking appears on a sign showing a P crossed by a broom, with the days and hours printed beneath it. That symbol is the whole rule. Everything else on the pole is a separate restriction that also applies.
The posted hours are the rule, whatever the sweeper does
NYC311 states it plainly: the rules apply for the entire time posted on the sign, even if a street sweeper has already passed. Watching the truck go by and moving back is the single most common way people in this city collect a ticket they believe is unfair.
Check both sides of the street, and both ends of the block
Signs govern the stretch between them, and rules change mid-block more often than people expect. Walk to the next sign in each direction before you leave the car.
Assume the five minutes is all you get
NYC311 describes a five-minute grace period in alternate side zones. Treat those five minutes as a small mercy for the day you are genuinely stuck, and never as the plan.
Never double park while you decide
It is illegal to double park a passenger vehicle at all times, including while street cleaning is happening. Waiting in the car does not change that.
On the major legal holidays, NYC311 notes that you may park at a No Stopping, No Standing or No Parking sign where that rule is not normally in effect seven days a week. On every other holiday, only the street cleaning rules are suspended and everything else on the pole still applies. That distinction is where a lot of holiday tickets come from.
What it costs when you get it wrong
The Department of Finance publishes the fine for every violation code. These four are the ones a resident actually meets, read from that table on September 22, 2026. Every one of them carries a $15 New York State criminal justice surcharge on top of the amount shown.
| What happened | Code | Fine | The wording that matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Street cleaning and other posted no-parking rules | Code 21 | $65 | The alternate side ticket. Parking where a sign, street marking or traffic control device does not allow it. |
| Expired meter or missing receipt | Codes 37 and 38 | $35 outside Manhattan below 96th Street, $65 within it | Parking beyond the allowed time, or not displaying the receipt or tag in the windshield. |
| No standing | Code 14 | $115 | Standing or parking where standing is not allowed by sign, street marking or traffic control device. |
| Fire hydrant | Code 40 | $115 | Stopping, standing or parking closer than 15 feet to a hydrant. The 15 feet is measured, not estimated. |
Read the middle column against the first one and the arithmetic of a garage changes shape. Two street cleaning tickets in a month is $130 plus $30 in surcharges, and that is before the hours. Fines change, so treat the table above as the figure on the day it was checked and confirm the current one on the Department of Finance page before you rely on it.
The four kinds of parking
When a listing says parking is available, it means one of four quite different things. The differences are mostly about certainty.
| Type | Protection | How it is paid | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Street parking | None. Weather, branches and other drivers all reach your car. | Free to park, expensive in time and tickets. Alternate side rules move you at least twice a week. | No guarantee of anything, at any hour. |
| Outdoor lot at the building | Open air. Snow clearing varies with the operator. | Usually a monthly charge from the building. | Often first come, first served rather than an assigned space. |
| Garage inside the building | Enclosed. The main reason people want one. | A monthly charge, sometimes under a separate agreement from the lease. | The rarest option. Older buildings were not designed to hold one. |
| Commercial garage nearby | Enclosed, but you still walk there in whatever the weather is doing. | A monthly contract with the garage, independent of your landlord. | Usually the most available option, and the least convenient. |
What a space is worth to you
Published garage rates move constantly and vary street by street, so any figure in an article ages badly. Price it yourself instead, in four lines, using quotes you collect this month:
- The monthly quote from two or three garages actually near the apartment you are considering, for your size of vehicle.
- The walk. If the garage is several blocks away, that walk happens twice every time you use the car, in every kind of weather.
- Your own time. Count the street-cleaning moves and the evenings spent circling, then put your own hourly number against them.
- Condition. A car kept on the street in a dense city picks up damage. Whether that matters depends entirely on the car.
A worked version, with numbers you replace with your own. Suppose alternate side moves you twice a week and each move costs you twenty minutes of circling. That is roughly forty minutes a week, about thirty hours a year. Add two street cleaning tickets a year at $65 plus the $15 surcharge, which is $160. Put your own hourly figure against the thirty hours and add the $160. The result is the number a monthly garage quote has to beat, and for a lot of people it beats it comfortably.
Do that once and the question changes shape. You stop asking whether a building garage is expensive and start asking whether it is cheaper than what you are already paying in hours and tickets. Most people I have watched go through this arrive at an answer that surprises them.
There is a fifth line for some people, which is whether you need the car at all. The MTA lists the subway and local bus fare at $3, NYC Ferry lists the adult one-way at $4.00 on the South Brooklyn route, and Citi Bike covers this part of the borough as part of a network it describes as more than 35,000 bikes and over 2,300 stations. If the car exists for weekends and errands rather than for a commute, price a rental or a car share for the trips you actually take before you price a permanent space.
Parking at 875 Fourth Avenue
875 Fourth Avenue has an on-site garage with 21 parking spaces. Current availability, pricing, eligibility, and assignment terms must be confirmed with EXR leasing.
That qualification is not boilerplate. A garage of 21 parking spaces in a building of 150 residences means capacity is finite, so the existence of the garage and the availability of a space on your date are two separate facts. This site can state the first. Only leasing can state the second.
The rest of the building's shared space is on the amenities page: a furnished rooftop terrace, a resident fitness center, a resident co-working lounge, a courtyard, bike storage, a package room and tenant storage. Doorman service is provided from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, seven days a week. Current homes and pricing are on the availability page.
What to get in writing
Ask these of any building with parking, in this order, before you commit to a lease that assumes a space. Send them in one message and keep the reply.
Ask whether a space can actually be offered
An amenity list says the building has a garage. It does not say a space is free for your lease start. Ask that question in those words, and ask what happens if the answer changes between your application and your move-in date.
Get the full monthly number
The charge, any deposit, any tax, and whether the amount can change during the lease term. A parking charge that resets annually is a different product from one fixed for the term.
Ask how the space is assigned
Assigned or unassigned, and if assigned, when that is confirmed in writing. Verbal assignment is not assignment.
Check that your vehicle fits
Height, length and access method all matter, and so does anything unusual about your car. Ask about charging if you drive electric, and ask what insurance the building requires.
Find out which document governs it
Parking may sit inside the residential lease or in a separate agreement with its own termination terms. Read whichever one it is before you sign either, and check whether losing the space is a reason you could end the lease.
Ask what happens when the garage closes
Maintenance, repaving, a gate failure or a snow event all take a garage out of service for a while. Ask what the building does with residents’ cars when that happens, and whether anything is credited.
Ask about access hours and how you get in
A fob, an app, a keypad, or an attendant who goes home at eight. If you work nights or travel, a garage you cannot open at 2am is close to useless, and no amenity list has ever mentioned which kind it is.
A written answer to seven questions takes a leasing team ten minutes and removes almost every way this goes wrong later. If any of the seven comes back as a verbal reassurance, treat that item as unanswered rather than as a yes.
Parking questions
Does 875 Fourth Avenue have on-site parking?
Yes. The on-site garage contains 21 parking spaces. Current availability, pricing, eligibility, and assignment terms must be confirmed with EXR leasing.
Does a building having a garage mean I get a space?
No. Garage capacity is not the same as a space being available on your move-in date, and it is the single most common misunderstanding in an apartment search. Ask leasing to confirm availability for your specific lease start in writing.
How often does alternate side parking move my car?
In most Brooklyn neighborhoods, at least twice a week during posted street-cleaning windows, apart from the suspension days NYC DOT publishes. The current calendar and rules are on the NYC DOT alternate side parking page.
How much is a street-cleaning ticket in New York City?
The Department of Finance lists violation code 21, parking where parking is not allowed by sign, street marking or traffic control device, at $65, plus a $15 New York State criminal justice surcharge. A hydrant or no-standing ticket is $115 plus the same surcharge. Fines change, so check the Department of Finance violation code table for the current figure.
Can I move my car back once the street sweeper has passed?
No. NYC311 states that alternate side rules apply for the entire time posted on the sign, even if a street sweeper has already passed. There is a five-minute grace period in alternate side zones and nothing more. Double parking a passenger vehicle while you wait is illegal at all times.
Is alternate side parking suspended when it snows?
It can be suspended for weather and emergencies, and NYC DOT says to check NYC311 or Notify NYC for those. DOT also notes that it restores alternate side regulations after a snowfall so that streets can be plowed, so a snow day is not automatically a day off from moving the car.
Is a building garage better than a commercial garage nearby?
Usually, for convenience: no walk in the rain, and you can reach the car whenever you want. Compare the written terms of each one before you decide, because a good commercial contract beats a bad building one.
Ask about the garage and the apartment together
Send a tour request with your preferred timing, and ask EXR leasing in the same message whether a garage space can be offered for your lease start, and on what terms.