permits-and-planning

name	permits-and-planning
description	Access building permit data, zoning information, urban planning, property assessments, and land use data for Montréal. / Accéder aux données de permis de construction, zonage, urbanisme, évaluations foncières et affectation du sol pour Montréal.
triggers	["permit, building permit, construction, zoning, urban plan, property, assessment","permis, construction, zonage, urbanisme, évaluation foncière, affectation"]

Permits & Urban Planning / Permis et urbanisme

Available Datasets / Jeux de données disponibles

Building Permits / Permis de construction

Dataset: permis-construction Resources:

• CSV (DataStore-active ✓) — Permits for construction, transformation, and demolition
• GeoJSON — Same data with geographic coordinates
• Web visualization tool

# Find the resource ID
curl -s 'https://donnees.montreal.ca/api/3/action/package_show?id=permis-construction' | \
  python3 -c "
import json, sys
for r in json.load(sys.stdin)['result']['resources']:
    if r.get('datastore_active'):
        print(f'DataStore resource: {r[\"id\"]}')
        print(f'Name: {r[\"name\"][:80]}')
"

Typical fields:

• Permit number, type (construction, transformation, demolition)
• Project address, borough
• Estimated project cost
• Permit issue date, status
• Type of work (residential, commercial, institutional)
• Geographic coordinates

Common queries:

-- Permits in a specific borough
SELECT * FROM "RESOURCE_UUID"
WHERE "ARROND" = 'Le Plateau-Mont-Royal'
ORDER BY "DATE_EMISSION" DESC
LIMIT 20

-- Total permit value by borough
SELECT "ARROND", COUNT(*) as count, SUM(CAST("COUT_ESTIME" AS FLOAT)) as total_cost
FROM "RESOURCE_UUID"
GROUP BY "ARROND"
ORDER BY total_cost DESC

-- Recent demolition permits
SELECT * FROM "RESOURCE_UUID"
WHERE "TYPE_PERMIS" LIKE '%démolition%'
ORDER BY "DATE_EMISSION" DESC
LIMIT 10

Property Assessment / Évaluation foncière

Dataset: unites-evaluation-fonciere (or search for "évaluation foncière") Resources: CSV + GeoJSON Content: Property assessment units for all 16 cities of the Montréal agglomeration.

Key fields:

• CUBF code (Code d'utilisation des biens-fonds) — property use classification
• Assessed land value, building value, total value
• Approximate dimensions
• Registration number
• Geographic position

Important: This data has no legal value for cadastral purposes. It's the city's assessment for tax purposes, not the legal property boundary (which is the provincial Cadastre du Québec).

Land Use / Affectation du sol

Dataset: affectation-du-sol Format: GeoJSON (download only — not in DataStore) Content: Zoning and land use designations across the city.

Urban Plan / Plan d'urbanisme

Related datasets:

• schema-transport — Transportation schema
• vision-2050-reseau-transport-collectif-structurant-plan-urbanisme-mobilite-2050 — 2050 transit vision
• cartes-reglement-metropole-mixte — Mixed-use regulation maps

Building Data

Dataset	Slug	Format
2D building footprints	batiment-2d	GeoJSON/Shapefile
3D building maquette	batiment-3d-2016-maquette-citygml-lod2-avec-textures2	CityGML
Municipal buildings	batiments-municipaux	CSV
Vacant buildings (Ville-Marie)	batiments-vacants-ville-marie	CSV
Family-certified buildings	batiments-certifies-qualite-famille	CSV

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Common Questions / Questions fréquentes

Question	Dataset	Approach
"Were any permits issued on my street?"	permis-construction	Filter by address/street name
"How much construction in my borough?"	permis-construction	Group by ARROND, count/sum
"What's the assessed value of a property?"	unites-evaluation-fonciere	Filter by address or registration #
"Is this area zoned residential?"	affectation-du-sol	GeoJSON spatial lookup
"Any demolitions nearby?"	permis-construction	Filter TYPE_PERMIS + coordinates
"3D model of a neighborhood?"	batiment-3d-*	CityGML download

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Gotchas / Pièges

1. Permit field names vary. Check actual field names via datastore_info — they may differ from what's described here.
2. Cost is estimated, not actual. COUT_ESTIME is the applicant's estimate at permit time.
3. Assessment ≠ market value. Property assessments are done every 3 years and may not reflect current sale prices.
4. GeoJSON files can be large. Building footprints for all of Montréal is a substantial download.
5. CityGML is specialized. 3D building data requires GIS tools (QGIS, FME, CesiumJS) — not standard data analysis tools.

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Provenance / Provenance

Source	Publisher	Gov Level	License	Contact
Building permits	Ville de Montréal	Municipal	CC BY 4.0	[e-mail]
Property assessment	Ville de Montréal (Direction de l'évaluation foncière)	Municipal (agglomeration)	CC BY 4.0	[e-mail]
Land use / zoning	Ville de Montréal	Municipal	CC BY 4.0	[e-mail]
Building footprints	Ville de Montréal	Municipal	CC BY 4.0	[e-mail]
Cadastre (legal boundaries)	Registre foncier du Québec	Provincial	Provincial terms	registrefoncier.gouv.qc.ca

Important distinction: Property assessment data is from the city (for tax purposes). The legal property registry (cadastre) is from the province. They overlap but are not the same thing. When a citizen asks about property boundaries in a legal context, direct them to the provincial Registre foncier.

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Related Skills / Compétences connexes

• query-dataset — DataStore query patterns
• borough-context — Borough names and boundaries
• spatial-queries — Geographic filtering
• budget-and-finance — Contract and spending data