How the Calgary permit process shows up in the data

Source: City of Calgary Open Data — Building Permits (dataset c2es-76ed). CalgaryPermit stores a copy of that feed and calculates the figures on this page from that copy. The City of Calgary is the publisher of the original file.

Where you actually apply

Applications are made to the City. The public overview is calgary.ca/development/permits. Fees, drawings, timelines, and which work needs a permit are City rules. This page does not restate those rules and does not quote a review time, because the open dataset does not publish a service standard. Any number of days you have heard is not a figure computed from this file unless a page on this site shows the arithmetic from stored dates.

After the City has a file, the Building Permits dataset on data.calgary.ca can include it. This site copies that dataset. A permit can exist at the City before it shows up here, and a status can change at the City before the next copy.

The dates are the process you can verify

Read the dates in this order:

1. Applied date. The file has been recorded. You will see this on almost every row that has entered the dataset. The status at this point may still be Application Received, a review stage, or already something later if you are looking at an older extract.
2. Issued date. The City has issued the permit. The status label is often Issued Permit, but later rows move on to Completed and keep the issued date. If you need to know when work was authorized, use the issued date, not the day you happened to look at the row.
3. Completed date. The City has marked the file completed. That is the closest the dataset comes to “this permit file is closed.” It is still not a statement about occupancy, a real-estate listing, or whether the owner is happy with the work.

A row with an applied date and no issued date is an application the City has not issued, at least in the copy you are looking at. That includes files in review, files on hold, files that were refused or cancelled, and files that are simply new. Look at statuscurrent before you assume the applicant is waiting on a normal review.

What the common status labels are doing

The dataset publishes the status string and does not publish a definition table beside it. The labels below are read from the words the City used. Where the dataset is silent, this page is silent.

• Application Received and New — the file is in the dataset and the label does not say it has been issued.
• Pending Prescreen Review, Pending Plans Review Assignment, Pending Plans Review, and In Review — the label says the file is in a review step. The issued date is usually empty.
• Hold, and the more specific holds such as Hold - Prescreen Review, Hold - Pending Plans Review, and Hold - Completeness Review — the label says the file is on hold. The dataset does not say why. Do not invent a reason from the address or the cost.
• Issued Permit — the label says the permit has been issued. The issued date should be the date that happened. If a row is labelled Issued Permit and the issued date is empty in our copy, treat the date as missing data, not as a second definition of “issued.”
• Completed and Final Phase — the label says the file has moved past issuance. Completed rows generally also have a completed date. Final Phase is a separate, much less common label. Do not fold it into Completed unless the row says so.
• Refused, Cancelled, Expired, and File Closed — the file is not an active issued permit. An expired or cancelled file is not a lead for work that is about to start.
• Pre Backfill Phase and Pre Board Phase — these strings appear in the feed. The column list does not define them. Leave them as the City labelled them.

What this site adds, and what it does not

Once a day, the site asks the City feed for permits whose applied date or issued date falls in the sync window, and it upserts those rows. The issued date is copied from issueddate. It is not derived from the status. A full copy is capped by the feed's page size, so a community page always describes the rows stored here and links the City dataset for the original file.

The site cannot tell you whether your drawings will pass, what the fee will be, or whether a neighbour's project matches the permit. For that, use the City. For a reading of the row you already have, use the field guide and the permit page, which shows the applied, issued, and completed dates side by side.