Start at the station
Dongan Hills has a Staten Island Railway stop of its own. The MTA's station dataset lists it as an embankment station that is accessible in both directions. The Census Bureau's geocoder places the station in Census Tract 96.02, and the 2020–2024 American Community Survey sketches the housing there. The tract holds an estimated 1,479 homes (±193). Roughly 451 (±182) were built before 1940, 647 between 1940 and 1979, and 381 in 1980 or later (year built). About 540 (±115) are detached single-family structures and about 473 (±196) sit in buildings of two units (units in structure). Owners live in 757 of the 1,444 occupied homes, or 52.4 percent (tenure).
With margins that wide, read the figures as a shape rather than a count: a tract of older houses, a large share of them two-family, with close to half of occupied homes rented.
What that mix tends to mean indoors
A house from before 1940 has usually been rewired, replumbed and given a new heating plant at least once, often at different times, so the useful questions are when and by whom. Look for old and new wiring meeting at the panel, galvanized supply pipe surviving behind newer copper, and signs of an oil-to-gas conversion. In any two-family house, compare the certificate of occupancy with how the building is actually used: kitchens, meters and entrances should match the legal unit count.
The official area around it
The city's tax-lot file, PLUTO, groups Dongan Hills with Grasmere, Arrochar and South Beach in one official neighborhood area, Grasmere-Arrochar-South Beach-Dongan Hills. These are that area's figures, not Dongan Hills' own: 7,660 lots holding 13,015 homes. One-family houses make up 41.1 percent of units and two-family houses 29.3 percent. Elevator rentals account for 13.0 percent, walk-ups 5.6, condominiums 4.3, three-family houses 3.0, co-ops 1.6 and other or mixed buildings 2.1. By era, 17.8 percent of units date from before 1940, 49.5 percent from 1940 to 1979 and 31.4 percent from 1980 on; the small remainder has no recorded year. The median frontage of a one- or two-family lot in the area is 39.3 feet.
A fieldstone farmhouse begun around 1679
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Billiou-Stillwell-Perine House, 1476 Richmond Road, on February 28, 1967. The designation report describes a one-room original building from about 1679, with additions around 1700, 1750, 1790 and 1830, and calls it an important example of a late seventeenth-century farmhouse of rough-cut fieldstone. Its owner at designation was the Staten Island Historical Society. The report never uses the name Dongan Hills; the Census Bureau's geocoder places the landmark in Tract 96.02, the station's tract.
Where New Creek begins
DEP's Mid-Island Bluebelt plan traces the East Branch of New Creek to the southern end of Dongan Hills Avenue (New Creek watershed chapter, 2014). The plan's executive summary also explains why one drainage option was set aside: Dongan Hills Avenue is a narrow street, which may preclude a large double-barrel storm sewer.
For sanitary sewage, the New Creek chapter speaks of the whole watershed, not of Dongan Hills in particular. It calls the watershed "largely sewered for sanitary service," with gaps, in most cases one or two block lengths, that relied on septic systems when it was written. Its example of an area with no sanitary sewer service is Todt Hill, north of Richmond Avenue. In 2021 DEP reported progress on a $121 million expansion of the New Creek Bluebelt, describing work under way rather than finished.
All of this covers a drainage area whose East Branch starts on Dongan Hills Avenue, and none of it is newer than 2021. It does not show that a particular house is connected. Get the seller's proof of connection in writing, and for a pre-war house a camera scope of the lateral out to the street is worth ordering.
Checking the flood map for one address
FEMA's effective map draws 1%-annual-chance zones in the city's Grasmere-Arrochar-South Beach-Dongan Hills area, a description of the area rather than of any one house. That map is the 2007 edition; the city's NYC Flood Maps page explains that insurance follows it until revised maps take effect. Type the exact address into FEMA's lookup at the Map Service Center, and ask the lender whether coverage will be required. A basement can take water in a downpour whatever the map shows, so look for staining, efflorescence and a working sump.
Rules attached to the property
- Zoning. Under section 12-10, the Lower Density Growth Management Area takes in this borough's R1 to R3 zones along with R4A, R4-1 and C3A, plus every C1, C2 and C4 zone and certain lots with buildings on private roads. Check the lot in ZoLa before planning an addition.
- Gas piping. DOB's Local Law 152 schedule exempts one- and two-family homes. A three-family or mixed-use building in Community District 2 is due in 2029.
- Basement units. Local Law 126 of 2024 leaves Staten Island out of its program area. HPD and DOB published proposed rules in November 2025, and DOB's April 2026 page still showed them as not final.
Next step
Each walkthrough can be held in English or Bangla, with the inspector coming from East New York and the report delivered the day of the visit. Scope is described on the general home inspection page and, for two- and three-family buildings, the multi-family page. Questions and bookings go through contact.