An Understandable Zoning Guide

The guide is aimed at demystifying the often confusing verbiage of zoning rules.

"Along with admirably lucid prose, the 168-page book contains cartoonlike illustrations of what each zoning designation allows, as well as images showing successful applications of the provisions.

Zoning designation R8A, for example, is illustrated by 459 West 18th Street, an angular black-and-white building by the Brooklyn architects Della Valle Bernheimer. And the designation R8X is illustrated by On Prospect Park, the Richard Meier-designed condominium building facing Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Ms. Burden said she went over every 'line, every illustration, every photo,' adding, 'I love this guidebook with a passion.'

But this is no coffee-table tour of the city's architecture; it is meant, Ms. Burden said, to be a tool."