# Building Permits Scraper - Multi-City Construction Leads (`abdulwhab95/building-permits-multi-city`) Actor

Building permits from dozens of city open-data portals in one run. Cities are discovered from the Socrata catalog, not a hand-kept list. Personal contact fields are dropped at the server.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/abdulwhab95/building-permits-multi-city.md
- **Developed by:** [ABDULWAHAB NASER RASHED ALQARAWI](https://apify.com/abdulwhab95) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Business
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.50 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Building Permits — Multi-City Construction Leads

Building permits from dozens of city open-data portals in a single run.

**Cities are discovered, not hard-coded.** Every competing Actor on this data is
wired to a fixed list somebody maintains by hand. This one queries the Socrata
open-data catalog, reads each dataset's own field list, and builds the request
from what that city actually publishes. A new city appears in the catalog and it
is covered without a code change.

***

### Personal data is dropped at the server

Raw permit payloads carry real people. Chicago's has ten contact columns
including `contact_1_name`; Calgary has `applicantname`.

Filtering those after download is not filtering — the data still travelled,
still sat in a dataset, still leaks on a crash. So every request sends an
explicit `$select` of the safe columns only, and **the server never emits the
rest**.

Verified on a 1,800-row run across six cities: **zero personal fields present.**

***

### What you get

One row per permit, normalised across cities that name everything differently.

| Field | Coverage |
|---|---|
| `address` | 99% |
| `permitType` | 97% |
| `description` | 93% |
| `declaredValue` | 73% |
| `issuedAt` | 66% |
| `city` | 31% |
| `contractor` | 22% |

Plus `source`, `dataset`, `permitNumber`, `status`, `appliedAt`, `completedAt`,
`fee`, `state`, `postcode`, `latitude`, `longitude`, `scrapedAt` — and `raw`,
which keeps every extra column that city publishes so a buyer who needs a
local field still has it.

**Newest first.** Without an explicit sort these portals return insertion order,
which hands back permits from 2006 — worthless as construction leads. Results
are ordered by issue date descending wherever the city publishes one.

***

### Use it for

- **Construction leads** — filter `declaredValue`, sort by `issuedAt`
- **Contractor prospecting** — who is pulling permits, and for what size of work
- **Market research** — permit volume and declared value by city over time
- **Supplier targeting** — match `permitType` to what you sell

***

### Speed and cost

Measured, 1 Sep 2026: **1,800 permits from 6 cities in 60 seconds**, 14 requests.

The catalog offered 43 city datasets; 15 of 16 sampled answered a plain request.

***

### Honest notes

**Coverage is uneven by design.** `city` sits at 31% and `contractor` at 22%
because many portals simply do not publish those columns. They come back `null`
rather than the row changing shape — check the field you need before buying at
scale.

**Some portals stop answering.** They are city IT departments, not APIs with an
SLA. Unreachable cities are listed in the run report under `skipped` rather than
failing the run.

**Dates vary in format** between portals; they are passed through as the city
publishes them rather than being guessed into a single format.

**Every run publishes a report** to the key-value store under `RUN_REPORT`:
cities covered, cities skipped and why, fields kept per city, and cost per 1,000.

***

### Questions or a city that will not load?

Open an issue with the portal domain.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Searched against the Socrata open-data catalog to find which cities publish it. 'building permits' is the default; 'demolition permits' or 'electrical permits' also work.

## `maxCities` (type: `integer`):

How many city portals to pull from in one run.

## `maxPermitsPerCity` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many permits from each city.

## `issuedSince` (type: `string`):

Only permits issued on or after this date. Leave empty for the most recent available. Applied only where the city publishes an issue-date column.

## `requestDelayMs` (type: `integer`):

Politeness toward city servers. These are public portals - do not hammer them.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "building permits",
  "maxCities": 8,
  "maxPermitsPerCity": 500,
  "issuedSince": "",
  "requestDelayMs": 300
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Every permit row.

## `runReport` (type: `string`):

Cities covered and skipped, cost per 1,000, publish verdict.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "building permits"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("abdulwhab95/building-permits-multi-city").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "query": "building permits" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("abdulwhab95/building-permits-multi-city").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "building permits"
}' |
apify call abdulwhab95/building-permits-multi-city --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,abdulwhab95/building-permits-multi-city"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/wEW3zSgHkIynfPMD7/builds/hlxeUKqpNlQi7Ke3T/openapi.json