One name, two governments, one ZIP code
The Census Bureau keeps two separate places under this name. Farmingdale sits on the bureau's Incorporated Places layer, GEOID 3625384: a village with a government of its own. South Farmingdale sits on the Census Designated Places layer, GEOID 3669001, a statistical outline with no government behind it. Both fall within Oyster Bay town (TIGERweb, places and county subdivisions). That distinction decides where a permit file lives, and the envelope will not reveal it: the state's drinking water list prints one ZIP, 11735, for the village water system and the South Farmingdale district alike (Nassau drinking water contacts). The county's Land Records Viewer settles it per parcel.
Inside the village
The Village of Farmingdale Building Department, 361 Main Street, telephone 516-249-0093, lists its functions as issuing building permits, conducting building and fire and life safety inspections, and handling variances, code interpretations and certificates of existing use. Read the last of those carefully: a certificate of existing use is not a certificate of occupancy, and the village page never mentions one. Which document exists for a village property, and who holds it, is a question for the village.
Outside it
For South Farmingdale the authority is the Town of Oyster Bay Building Division, which states that applications "can be obtained at the Building Division located at 74 Audrey Ave in Oyster Bay" and at its Massapequa annex, and that it "also issues certificates of occupancy." Its number: (516) 624-6200, extension 1.
The village housing record
Inside the village line the 2020 to 2024 survey finds 3,678 housing units, median construction year 1963 with a margin of four years (B25035). The bands spread widely: 783 units from 1939 or earlier, an estimate carrying a 211 margin, 716 from the 1950s, 583 from the 1960s, 481 from the 1980s and 281 from 2010 through 2019 (B25034). Detached houses number 1,776, under half the total, while 1,267 units sit in buildings of ten or more (B25024). Of 3,531 occupied units, 2,473 are owner-occupied and 1,058 rented (B25003). Heating runs 1,928 on utility gas, 1,081 on fuel oil or kerosene and 447 on electricity (B25040).
The South Farmingdale housing record
The CDP holds 4,691 units, median construction year 1956 with a margin of one year (B25035), of which 3,132 date from the 1950s, on a 266 margin, and 757 from the 1960s, with essentially none recorded as built in 2010 or later (B25034). Detached houses account for 4,434 of the 4,691 (B25024); 4,458 of 4,685 occupied units are owner-occupied (B25003). Heating runs 2,489 on gas and 1,881 on fuel oil or kerosene (B25040).
Two consequences follow. A unit in a building of ten or more brings governing documents and a shared maintenance history. A 1950s house extended since has a predictable shell, so ask which additions were permitted and whether the electrical service grew with it.
Buried tanks, where oil heat is still counted in thousands
Oil-fired heating is in four figures on both records above, and much of the gas-heated stock is old enough to have started on oil. In Nassau those records are not the state's. Petroleum bulk storage here runs under county administration "pursuant to delegation from DEC" (petroleum tank regulations), so a village address and a hamlet address lead to the same county office on this one subject. A pair of pipes at the wall, an abandoned feed line indoors and a depression in the lawn are the prompts, and the removal paperwork is what to request. Those are questions for a seller, not an account of what stands at any address here.
Two water systems, both listed by the state
That same list carries Farmingdale (V), PWS identifier NY2902821, 8,744 served, at 361 Main Street — the village building department's address too — and South Farmingdale Water District, PWS NY2902854, 44,700 served. Identifiers are not service boundaries, so a seller's water bill shows which system serves an address.
Wastewater: two rows, one authority
The county's list of sewer authorities by community carries Farmingdale and So. Farmingdale as separate rows, each entered against the Nassau County Department of Public Works, and neither takes the mark the document reserves for a community that "Operates as a sewer Collection District only." Neither appears among the 34 listed as not publicly sewered. The document bears no date on its face and arrives without a last-modified header or entity tag, so its currency cannot be established, and a community listing is not proof that a parcel was connected. The address itself goes into the Land Records Viewer.
Read the FEMA fields as written
The NFIP Community Status Book record for Farmingdale, Village of, is community 361629, participating and not sanctioned, initial flood insurance rate map April 2, 1997, with the current effective map date field entered as (NSFHA) (FEMA Community Status Book data). The notation is reproduced exactly as the field reads, not translated into a statement about risk on a lot. South Farmingdale falls under Oyster Bay town, community 360483, current effective map date September 11, 2009 (community status for New York). Neither record carries a Community Rating System class or premium discount, so no CRS reduction applies on either side of the line. Panels ignore all of those boundaries, and a Zone X lot has been found neither wet nor dry: that band takes in the 0.2 percent annual chance floodplain. Pull the panel from FEMA's Map Service Center.
Rail, and then the form
The state's rail station dataset lists a station named Farmingdale, code FMD, branch coded Ronkonkoma, fare zone 7, accessibility entered as FULL (MTA rail stations).
One state form applies on either side of the village line. Sellers of one-to-four-family homes owe buyers the Property Condition Disclosure Statement, form DOS-1614-f, revision 06/23, and a buyer who never receives one is credited $500 at closing under the form's own terms (Department of State). Question 28 asks which of public sewer, private sewer, septic or cesspool applies, with an age and a last pumping date for the last two. Question 14 does the same for fuel storage tanks, present or past, and whether any has leaked.