What a permit row tells a trade, before anyone else knows the job exists.
The City of Calgary publishes every building permit it issues, every day, on its open data portal. A permit is a project that has been approved and paid for: somebody is about to build, add, or alter, and the address is on the row. For a trade, that is a lead with a date on it. Here is how to read one.
The fields that matter
Work class. New, addition, alteration, demolition. New is a whole building; addition is a room, a garage, a suite; alteration is work inside what stands. Each trade has a favourite.
Permit class. The City's category: single detached, semi, apartment, retail shop, office, warehouse, basement development, below-grade suite. It tells you the kind of site before you drive there.
Estimated project cost. The applicant's own number. Sort by it and the big jobs float up; filter by it and the small ones stop wasting your morning.
Community and address. Your quadrant, your neighbourhoods, the streets you already drive.
Issued date. The clock. A permit issued yesterday is a job that has not started; a permit from three months ago has its trades chosen.
Description. The City's one line: "New 6 storey residential building", "Interior alterations", "Basement development with bathroom". The line is the job.
How each trade reads it
Roofers and exterior. Work class New and Addition, permit classes for houses and low-rise, sorted by cost. A new roof is on every one of them.
Electricians and plumbers. New, Addition, and every basement development or below-grade suite. A suite is a second kitchen and a second bathroom.
HVAC. New builds, additions over a threshold, and anything commercial with "tenant improvement" or "interior alterations" in the description.
Windows, doors, locks and security. New and Addition for the openings; apartment and commercial classes for the door hardware and the master key systems; a mailbox or a parkade means a locksmith.
Suppliers and realtors. Cost and community. A cluster of new permits in one community is a street being built; a realtor wants that list a year before the listings.
Setting the filters
Start wide: your quadrant, work class New and Addition, no cost floor, the last seven days. Read the list once and you will see your own filter in it: the two permit classes that matter to you and the cost floor under which you would not drive. Then run it every morning with yesterday's date, or once a week with the week's, and the list is only what is new.
What a permit does not tell you
The row carries no applicant name and no contractor name; this alert does not ask the City for them, by design. The permit holder is at the address, or the site is, and the work is yours to win the old way: a visit, a card, a call to the builder whose sign is on the fence. The row gets you there first; it does not knock for you.
A worked example
Take a new six-storey residential building in Southview, issued last week, estimated in the millions. The framer and the concrete crew were chosen months ago. The trades that are not chosen yet are the ones that come after the shell: doors and hardware, suites of locks, mailboxes, signage, the low-voltage work. That is who should be reading this row today.
If you would rather have the reading done for you, the permits report is on my Toku profile. The alert itself is on the Apify Store: Calgary Building Permits Alert. Fifteen dollars per thousand permits returned, a cent and a half each.
Shimon Ben-El