Answers · Chicago building permits
Chicago building permit types, explained
Chicago labels each permit with a permit_type in dataset ydr8-5enu. Five of them carry the trade filters this site publishes: PERMIT – EXPRESS PERMIT PROGRAM, PERMIT - NEW CONSTRUCTION, PERMIT - RENOVATION/ALTERATION, PERMIT - WRECKING/DEMOLITION and PERMIT - SIGNS. Electrical work files under the Express Permit Program; the older ELECTRIC WIRING type is retired.
Several trades are not permit types at all. Plumbing, HVAC and roofing have no label of their own — they appear inside the work description of permits filed under other types, which is why this site filters those three on work_description and the rest on permit_type.
The Express Permit Program type is spelled with an en dash (U+2013), not a hyphen. The other four use a plain hyphen. A query that gets this wrong returns zero rows and no error.
How this is measured
- Dataset
- ydr8-5enu
- Publisher
- City of Chicago
- Filter
- Permit type strings as they appear in the City's file, quoted from the trade filters in lib/permits.ts that this site runs against the dataset hourly.
- Measured
- No count on this page — it describes the file and the query, and carries no figure to date.
Caveat. This is the set of types the eight published trade filters use, not a complete catalogue of every permit type the City has ever issued.
Permit Signal
Permit Signal maps a contractor's trade onto these types and the work description behind them. The first delivery is three real records, free, with the government source link on every row.