DOB DeskDOB Desk

ZoneIQ CAD

AUTOCAD ADD-ON

NYC zoning inside the drawing you're already working in. Find the lot from its address, generate the buildable envelope, draw the zoning analysis table, and send the plan straight into a DOB NOW filing — without leaving AutoCAD or opening ZoLa in another window.

Before anything elseZoneIQ needs full AutoCAD 2020–2026 on Windows. It will not run on AutoCAD LT (no plugin support), and there is no Mac build. One licence covers 2 machines.

What it does

Six commands do the work. They run off one another — the lot you locate is the lot the envelope, the table and the filing all use.

ZONELOTFind the lot

Type an address or borough/block/lot. ZoneIQ reads the city's PLUTO record and comes back with the zoning district, any commercial overlay, special districts, lot area, frontage and depth. Everything after this starts from that record instead of from memory.

ZONEENVBuild the envelope

Select the lot polyline and pick the street side. ZoneIQ applies the front, side and rear yards per edge, caps it at the district's lot coverage, then reconciles FAR against the height limit and extrudes the massing to whichever one actually governs — and tells you which.

ZONETABLEDraw the analysis table

The Required / Proposed / Complies table your Z-001 sheet needs, drawn into the drawing with the ZR section behind each line. Lot coverage and all three yards are measured off your own polylines. Lines that don't comply turn red.

ZONEFILESend it to the filing

Reads the plan off the drawing — every closed polyline paired with the room label inside it — and sends the address, BBL, district, stories, units, floor area and room schedule to DOB Desk, where it seeds a DOB NOW filing the extension then types in.

ZONEAIDraft in plain language

“Draw a 25x30 one-bedroom”, “add a kitchen along the north wall”. Generated geometry respects the active district's setbacks, because ZoneIQ already knows them. ZONEAIBLOCK hands you a component as a block to place.

PRELIMBEAMSize a beam, check the drawing

Preliminary steel beam sizing on the AISC 360-16 basis NYC BC 2022 adopts. QACHECK sweeps the drawing for entities on layer 0, empty text, zero-length and duplicate lines before the set goes out.

Where the numbers come from

78 zoning districts — 38 residence, 30 commercial, 10 overlays — read from the Zoning Resolution text as amended by City of Yes (adopted 5 December 2024), not from a published summary table. Every result names the ZR sections behind it and the date the rules were pulled.

What it refuses to do

A zoning number that's wrong but plausible is worse than no number, because it ends up on a sheet somebody seals. ZoneIQ is built to stop rather than guess:

  • Lot areas are read through the drawing's real units. An inch-unit drawing reported 144x the true area until this was fixed — every measurement now crosses one converter.
  • Irregular lots are refused, not approximated. Non-convex lots, arc segments and anything over 12 corners get a plain explanation instead of a wrong-but-plausible envelope.
  • Commercial districts carry no bulk of their own. ZoneIQ resolves through the residence-district equivalent the ZR points at (34-112 / 35-23) and says which district's numbers you're looking at.
  • The wide-street line is applied explicitly, and ZoneIQ warns you when a lot straddles the 100 ft boundary, because the ZR splits by “zoning lots or portions thereof” and one line can't be right for both.
  • UAP and qualifying-residential-site bonuses are never applied for you. They're legal tests about the housing being built, not something a drawing can prove, so they appear as notes.
  • Any district whose values couldn't be confirmed against the ZR text is labelled UNVERIFIED on every result that uses it.

How it fits the rest of DOB Desk

ZoneIQ is the front of the same line, not a separate product. The drawing becomes the filing:

STEP 1
In AutoCAD

ZONEFILE reads the plan and sends the address, BBL, district, stories, units and rooms.

STEP 2
On DOB Desk

It lands in the filing wizard under “Sent from ZoneIQCAD” — one click seeds the filing.

STEP 3
In DOB NOW

The Chrome extension types that filing into the real form, tab by tab, outlined green.

Getting it running

  1. Add ZoneIQ on Billing. Your licence key is minted there — it starts ZIQ-.
  2. Download the installer from the same page (it's not on the open web).
  3. Right-click the zip → Properties → Unblock, then extract. Skipping this is the single most common reason the ribbon never appears.
  4. Close AutoCAD, run install.cmd, reopen. The ZoneIQ tab loads itself every session after that — no NETLOAD, no Startup Suite.
  5. Type ZONEIQKEY and paste your key. Nothing works until it's in.
Where ZoneIQ actually is right now

The filing side of DOB Desk has been used on real jobs. ZoneIQ is younger: it's in active beta with a small number of firms, and it is a preliminary zoning tool throughout. Check every number against the Zoning Resolution before it goes on a sheet — that is true of any zoning software, and it is especially true of this one today. If something is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed: support@dobdesk.com.

Price

+$39per user / month, on top of Pro ($149)

ZoneIQ is an add-on to a Pro account, because ZONEFILE lands in the filing wizard and the filing wizard is Pro. One licence covers 2 machines. Cancel from Billing at any time.

Add ZoneIQ →Compare plans

ZoneIQ is a preparation and design aid. Zoning determinations, envelopes, and the analysis table are the professional judgment of the PE/RA of record; the NYC Zoning Resolution and the Department of Buildings' own determinations govern.

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