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After earning coveted landmark status in June, Sunnyside Gardens, one of only four Special Planned Community Preservation Districts in the City, is getting some work done.

The City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved last week the first two exterior renovation projects in the newly minted historic district: the renovation of an existing enclosed porch in Washington Court and the redesign of a rear dormer in Hamilton Court.

After a year spent seeking approvals, Laura Heim Architect PLLC will handle both projects.

“I was very pleased and very honored to represent the client for the first two projects that went through,” Heim said. She opened her firm in March 2006, has an office in the Gardens and has lived in Sunnyside for the past three years.

The Washington Court project, Heim explained, involves restoring a non-historic, vertical wood-sided enclosed porch. To create a “more charming, porch-like enclosure,” Heim will include a white painted frame holding new multi-pane sliding French doors and two double-hung windows.

In Hamilton Court, Heim said she will repair a decayed dormer, which is an extension erected out of a sloping roof to accommodate a vertical window, built before 1940. Heim explained that her concept “reduces the size of the dormer by setting it back from the rear façade and increasing the slope of the dormer roof, which not only makes less prominent and more compatible with and adjacent dormer, but also diminishes wall height and improves water drainage.”

Heim had to present her ideas for approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the City Planning Commission and the Department of Buildings. During a meeting this week, a city planning spokesman said an amendment was proposed that would eliminate duplicative regulations and the need to gain approve from multiple agencies.

For years, property owners in Sunnyside Gardens have had to go to the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the City Planning Commission for approval of property modifications. Under the proposed amendment, owners would simply have to apply directly to the LPC, which would handle the rigorous review process and issue approvals or denials.

“Work in the neighborhood will be much easier to complete with outlined and enforced Landmarks regulations,” Heim said. “Clearly the Landmarks Preservation Commission is the proper agency to regulate the neighborhood for appropriateness.”

A city planning spokesman also said that in order to “ensure consistency between the zoning provisions for Sunnyside Gardens and the built character of the neighborhood, the proposed text amendment would retain the Special Planned Community District in Sunnyside Gardens and establish a uniform maximum building height, density and yard regulations, and off-street parking pursuant to an R4 district in the special district’s underlying commercial and residential districts.”

The special regulations for Sunnyside Gardens would also generally maintain the prohibition on curb cuts, as well.