# Louisiana Building Permits Monitor (Baton Rouge + New Orleans) (`maniginam/louisiana-building-permits`) Actor

Baton Rouge and New Orleans building permits in one clean feed.  Filter by category, status, issue date, project value, and contractor, or monitor new permits on a schedule for contractor and home-service leads.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/maniginam/louisiana-building-permits.md
- **Developed by:** [Gina Martiny](https://apify.com/maniginam) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 permit records

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?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Louisiana Building Permits Monitor (Baton Rouge + New Orleans)

Baton Rouge and New Orleans building permits, both cities in one clean feed.  Every permit comes back in the same shape with the job address, contractor, owner, project value, and dates, so you can filter for roofing, solar, pools, or new construction and hand the results straight to a sales team.  Turn on monitor mode and schedule it to get only the permits issued since your last run.

### What does it do?

The two cities publish permits on separate open data portals with different column names, different value formats, and different ideas of what a permit type is.  This Actor reads both official datasets, maps every row into one normalized record with a `city` field, sorts each permit into a lead-friendly category, and leaves out non-construction records such as brake tags, event permits, and short-term rental licenses.

It reads the public Socrata APIs that power data.brla.gov and data.nola.gov, so there is no browser, no proxy, and no login involved.  About 144,000 Baton Rouge permits (2011 to today) and about 334,000 New Orleans permits (2012 to today) are available, and both portals add new permits daily.

### Who is it for?

- Roofers, solar installers, pool builders, HVAC, generator, and fence contractors looking for homeowners who just pulled a permit.
- Suppliers and subcontractors who want to know which general contractors are busy, and where.
- Insurance, home warranty, and home-service marketers who follow new construction and renovation.
- Real estate investors, appraisers, and researchers tracking construction activity across both metros.

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `cities` | list | `batonRouge`, `newOrleans`, or both.  Empty means both. |
| `categories` | list | Any of `solar`, `roofing`, `generator`, `pool`, `demolition`, `newConstruction`, `electrical`, `mechanical`, `plumbing`, `renovation`, `sign`, `occupancy`, `accessoryStructure`, and `other`.  Empty means every category. |
| `permitTypeContains` | text | Case-insensitive text that must appear in the city's own permit type, for example `SWIMMING POOL`. |
| `statuses` | list | `open`, `completed`, `expired`, or `voided`.  New Orleans only: Baton Rouge publishes no permit status, so setting this skips Baton Rouge entirely. |
| `issuedSince` | date | Earliest issue date, `YYYY-MM-DD`, inclusive. |
| `issuedUntil` | date | Latest issue date, `YYYY-MM-DD`, inclusive. |
| `minProjectValue` | number | Smallest declared project value in dollars.  Permits with no declared value are left out when this is set. |
| `contractorContains` | text | Case-insensitive text that must appear in the contractor name.  Letters, digits, spaces, and `& . , ' ( ) / -`, up to 80 characters. |
| `maxResults` | number | Most permits to deliver per city in one run.  Default 1000, maximum 500,000. |
| `onlyNewPermits` | true or false | Monitor mode.  Outputs only permits this search has not delivered before. |

Permits come newest issue date first, Baton Rouge before New Orleans.

Sample input:

```json
{
  "cities": ["batonRouge", "newOrleans"],
  "categories": ["roofing", "solar"],
  "issuedSince": "2026-10-01",
  "minProjectValue": 10000,
  "maxResults": 500
}
```

### Output

Each permit is one dataset item.  This is a real Baton Rouge record:

```json
{
  "city": "Baton Rouge",
  "parish": "East Baton Rouge",
  "permitId": "BR-18948714",
  "permitNumber": "187593",
  "permitType": "Re-Roof (R)",
  "category": "roofing",
  "landUse": "Residential",
  "description": "Residential re-roofing",
  "status": null,
  "statusGroup": null,
  "statusDate": null,
  "appliedDate": "2026-10-26",
  "issuedDate": "2026-10-26",
  "projectValue": 29643.88,
  "squareFeet": 0,
  "permitFee": 0,
  "address": "5627 BENNINGTON AVE",
  "zip": "70808",
  "fullAddress": "5627 BENNINGTON AVE, Baton Rouge, LA 70808",
  "subdivision": "STRATFORD PLACE",
  "contractor": "Lifetime Roofing LLC",
  "contractorAddress": "Baton Rouge, LA 70808",
  "owner": "Howard Wilkinson",
  "applicant": "Garrett McCartney",
  "latitude": 30.4168591096551,
  "longitude": -91.1279181207997,
  "source": "City of Baton Rouge and Parish of East Baton Rouge Open Data, EBR Building Permits",
  "sourceUrl": "https://data.brla.gov/d/7fq7-8j7r",
  "changeType": "notTracked"
}
```

You can download results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML, or read them through the Apify API.

How the two cities map into one record:

| Record field | Baton Rouge column | New Orleans column |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `permitNumber` | `permitnumber` | `numstring` |
| `permitType` | `permittype` | `type` |
| `landUse` | `designation` | `landuse` |
| `description` | `projectdescription` | `description` |
| `status`, `statusDate` | not published | `currentstatus`, `currentstatusdate` |
| `appliedDate` | `creationdate` | `filingdate` |
| `issuedDate` | `issueddate` | `issuedate` |
| `projectValue` | `projectvalue` | `constrval` |
| `squareFeet` | `squarefootage` | `bldgarea` |
| `permitFee` | `permitfee` | `totalfees` |
| `address`, `zip` | `streetaddress`, `zip` | `address` (no ZIP published) |
| `contractor` | `contractorname` | `contractors` |
| `contractorAddress` | `contractoraddress` | not published |
| `owner`, `applicant` | `ownername`, `applicantname` | `owner`, `applicant` |
| `latitude`, `longitude` | `lat`, `long` | `location_1` |

- `permitId` is unique across both cities (`BR-` or `NO-` plus the city's own ID), so it is safe as a key when you merge runs.
- `category` comes from the permit type, and each permit lands in exactly one category.  `other` holds construction permits that fit none of the named groups.
- `statusGroup` turns the New Orleans status into `open`, `completed`, `expired`, or `voided`.  Baton Rouge rows carry null status fields, and a `statuses` filter skips Baton Rouge.
- Placeholder values such as `N/A` become null, and so do negative or unreadable amounts.  New Orleans often records a $0 project value on trade permits such as re-roofs.
- `changeType` is `new` in monitor mode and `notTracked` otherwise.

### Monitor mode

Set `onlyNewPermits` to true and add a schedule, for example every weekday at 7 AM Central.  The Actor remembers which permits it delivered for that exact search, per city, in a named key-value store.  The first run delivers every matching permit up to `maxResults` per city as `new`, so you may want a recent `issuedSince` date or a small `maxResults` for that first run.  Later runs deliver only permits the search has not delivered before, and you are not charged for the ones it skips.

A few things are worth knowing before you rely on it:

- History is keyed on the cities and filters of the search, but not on `maxResults`.  If you change a filter, including a "since" date that you move forward each week, the Actor starts a fresh history and reports every matching permit as `new` again.  Keep the filters fixed for a monitor.  Updates to the Actor itself keep your history.
- The Actor remembers about 45 days of permits.  A permit the city posts more than about 45 days after its issue date, or one dated before the oldest permit the monitor remembers, is treated as already seen.
- Two schedules running the same search at the same time share one history, and the run that finishes last wins.

### Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

- **Permit record:** $5.00 per 1,000 permits delivered to your dataset ($0.005 each).
- **Actor start:** Apify's standard start event ($0.00005).
- There is no separate charge per dataset item.

A roofing and solar search for both cities found about 290 permits issued in the 30 days to October 26, 2026, so a daily monitor for it would cost roughly $1.45 a month in permit-record events.  A full pull of every construction permit costs about $720 for Baton Rouge (about 144,000 permits) and about $1,670 for New Orleans (about 334,000 permits), so filters and `maxResults` are worth using.  You can cap any run with Apify's maximum charge setting.  The Actor stops cleanly at your limit, and you are only charged for permits that actually reach your dataset.

#### Estimated compute cost

Default memory is 512 MB.  A small filtered run (about 20 records) typically finishes in under a minute and costs well under $0.01 in Apify compute on top of the event charges.  A run of 10,000 permits per city takes about a minute.  A full pull of both cities (about 478,000 permits) is usually 10 to 20 minutes at 512 MB, on the order of $0.05 to $0.20 in compute depending on portal response times, plus the permit-record events above.

### Data source and freshness

- **Baton Rouge:** [EBR Building Permits](https://data.brla.gov/d/7fq7-8j7r), published by the City of Baton Rouge and Parish of East Baton Rouge on data.brla.gov and marked Public Domain.  Endpoint: `https://data.brla.gov/resource/7fq7-8j7r.json`
- **New Orleans:** [Permits](https://data.nola.gov/d/rcm3-fn58), published by the City of New Orleans (Department of Safety and Permits) on data.nola.gov under CC0.  Endpoint: `https://data.nola.gov/resource/rcm3-fn58.json`

Both portals refresh daily, and every record carries `source` and `sourceUrl` so you can trace it back.  The New Orleans data comes from the city's main Permits dataset rather than the Revenue map layer on maps.nola.gov, because that layer stopped updating in December 2024 and does not include contractor, owner, or status.

Only permits with an issue date are included.  If a portal is down or its firewall blocks the request, the run fails with a short message and keeps every permit it already delivered.  Run it again later.

### Is it legal to use this data?

The Actor reads public records that both cities publish for anyone to download, through their official open data APIs.  The data is provided as is, without any guarantee that it is complete, current, or accurate.  It is not a title search, an inspection record, or legal advice, so confirm anything important with the issuing city.  This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Baton Rouge, the Parish of East Baton Rouge, or the City of New Orleans.

Owner and applicant names are personal data even when the city publishes them.  If you contact people from these records, you are responsible for following the rules that apply to you, such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the CAN-SPAM Act, Do Not Call registries, and any privacy laws where you operate.

### FAQ

**Do I need an account or API key on either portal?**  No.  The Actor reads the same public APIs anyone can use.

**Why do Baton Rouge permits have no status?**  The Baton Rouge dataset does not publish one, so Baton Rouge rows come through with null status fields.  If you set `statuses`, the Actor skips Baton Rouge, logs a warning, and notes it in the run status, so you are never charged for Baton Rouge permits that ignore your filter.  Leave `statuses` empty to include Baton Rouge.

**Why is the New Orleans project value 0 on some permits?**  The city records $0 for many trade permits, such as re-roofs and electrical work, when no value was declared.  Use `minProjectValue` to keep only permits with a real declared value.

**Does it cover other Louisiana cities?**  Not yet.  It covers Baton Rouge (East Baton Rouge Parish) and New Orleans (Orleans Parish) only.

# Actor input Schema

## `cities` (type: `array`):

Baton Rouge (East Baton Rouge Parish) and New Orleans (Orleans Parish).  Leave empty to search both.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

Lead-friendly groups of permit types, for example solar, roofing, or pools.  Each permit falls into exactly one category, matched on its permit type.  Leave empty for every category.

## `permitTypeContains` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive text that must appear in the city's permit type, for example ROOF or SWIMMING POOL.  Letters, digits, spaces, and & . , ' ( ) / - only, up to 80 characters.  Leave empty for all types.

## `statuses` (type: `array`):

Open, completed, expired, or voided.  Only New Orleans publishes a permit status, so setting this filter skips Baton Rouge entirely and the run log says so.  Leave empty for every status in both cities.

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

Earliest permit issue date (YYYY-MM-DD), inclusive.  Leave empty for no lower bound.

## `issuedUntil` (type: `string`):

Latest permit issue date (YYYY-MM-DD), inclusive.  Leave empty for no upper bound.

## `minProjectValue` (type: `integer`):

Only permits whose declared construction value is at least this many dollars.  Permits with no declared value are left out when this is set.  Leave empty or 0 for any value.

## `contractorContains` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive text that must appear in the contractor name, for example ROOFING or SOLAR.  Letters, digits, spaces, and & . , ' ( ) / - only, up to 80 characters.  Leave empty for all contractors.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Upper limit on permits delivered for each city in this run, newest issue dates first.  Each delivered permit is charged as one permit-record event.

## `onlyNewPermits` (type: `boolean`):

When on, the Actor remembers the permits it delivered for this exact search and outputs only permits it has not delivered before.  Permits already delivered are skipped and not charged.  Use it with a daily or weekly schedule.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "cities": [
    "batonRouge",
    "newOrleans"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "roofing",
    "solar"
  ],
  "maxResults": 100,
  "onlyNewPermits": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

# 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 = {
    "cities": [
        "batonRouge",
        "newOrleans"
    ],
    "categories": [
        "roofing",
        "solar"
    ],
    "maxResults": 100
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("maniginam/louisiana-building-permits").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 = {
    "cities": [
        "batonRouge",
        "newOrleans",
    ],
    "categories": [
        "roofing",
        "solar",
    ],
    "maxResults": 100,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("maniginam/louisiana-building-permits").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 '{
  "cities": [
    "batonRouge",
    "newOrleans"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "roofing",
    "solar"
  ],
  "maxResults": 100
}' |
apify call maniginam/louisiana-building-permits --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/GS3mze64CwkgHG6bb/builds/51dvZMQbCzJSh3nYH/openapi.json