Pull newly issued building permits from city open data into a weekly lead list

Short answer

Many cities publish issued permits through open data APIs. A short script pulls the last 7 days, filters by work type and job cost, and writes a CSV you can sort for bidding or outreach. Start here: find your city's permit dataset on its open data portal. Keep a person in the loop: Permit data usually has no phone or email. Follow privacy and anti-spam rules for any outreach.

The problem

Pull newly issued building permits from city open data into a weekly lead list. This is a common, time-consuming task for a general contractor.

What this workflow does

Many cities publish issued permits through open data APIs. A short script pulls the last 7 days, filters by work type and job cost, and writes a CSV you can sort for bidding or outreach.

How it works: Rules or specialist software perform the task. No AI agent is required.

Your checkpoint: Permit data usually has no phone or email. Follow privacy and anti-spam rules for any outreach.

Before you start

Access to the named tool; confirm license, version and cost with the vendor.
A small, non-confidential sample to try the workflow on first.
A qualified person to review the output before it is used.

Tools and access

Follow the steps

Find your city's permit dataset on its open data portal.
Query the API with a date filter (issued in the last 7 days).
Keep address, work type, estimated cost, owner and applicant fields.
Spot check a few rows against the official portal.
Schedule it weekly and dedupe against last week's list.

Try a small example

Replace the bracketed fields with your own project details. No tested sample run is published for this workflow yet.

Sample input

Fill in the bracketed [fields] in the text below with your project data.

Manual setup checklist

Write a Python script that queries this Socrata dataset for permits issued in the last 7 days, keeps [fields], filters estimated cost over [amount], and writes a CSV: [dataset URL]

Expected output

Not published yet. Treat any output as a draft and check it against the source documents.

Check the result

Every value, citation or quantity traces back to a source document.
Missing information is marked as missing, not filled in.

Limits and recovery

Permit data usually has no phone or email. Follow privacy and anti-spam rules for any outreach.
Check your organization’s data policy before sharing project files with third-party tools.

Stop or switch when: The source cannot be verified, permissions are missing, or the result contains unsupported facts.

Frequently asked questions

How do I pull newly issued building permits from city open data into a weekly lead list?

Find your city's permit dataset on its open data portal. Query the API with a date filter (issued in the last 7 days). Keep address, work type, estimated cost, owner and applicant fields. The full step list is above.

Does this use an AI agent or regular software?

It is labeled Conventional automation: Rules or specialist software perform the task. No AI agent is required.

What tools do I need?

NYC DOB NOW approved permits, Socrata API docs. Confirm license, version and cost with the vendor, and try it on a small non-confidential sample first.

Can I use the output without checking it?

No. Permit data usually has no phone or email. Follow privacy and anti-spam rules for any outreach.

Has this workflow been tested?

Based on our own use · in regular use. Written from a workflow we built and use. Specifics are generalized and no project data is published. Not independently verified.

Evidence and maintenance

Written from a workflow we built and use. Specifics are generalized and no project data is published. Not independently verified.