Building permits

Description

A building permit is the approval given by a local jurisdiction to proceed on a construction project. Statistics on building permits include permits issued for privately-owned residential structures. This includes any structures not owned by a governmental entity, even if the structure was built using public subsidies. A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a group of rooms, or a single room intended for occupancy as separate living quarters. Manufactured homes, nursing homes and transitional housing are not included.

Single-family statistics include fully detached, semidetached (semi-attached, side-by-side), row houses, and townhouses. In the case of attached units, each must be separated from the adjacent unit by a ground-to-roof wall in order to be classified as a single-family structure. Also, these units must not share heating/air-conditioning systems or utilities. Multi-family units includes residential buildings containing units built one on top of another and those built side-by-side which do not have a ground-to-roof wall and/or have common facilities (i.e., attic, basement, heating plant, plumbing, etc.).

This data set contains only permits issued, and does not indicate whether units were actually put into construction for the period shown. However, current surveys indicate that construction is undertaken for all but a very small percentage of housing units authorized by building permits.

The Census Bureau, through the Building Permit Survey, reviews all places issuing building permits for privately-owned residential structures. Nationally, over 99% of privately-owned residential buildings constructed are in permit-issuing places. Areas for which no authorization is required to construct a privately-owned housing unit are not included in the survey. Slightly less than half of the permit-issuing places in the US are surveyed monthly; the remainder of places are surveyed annually.

NOTE: When both towns and their villages appear in this data set, they are assumed to be separate permitting entities. Therefore, village numbers are NOT ADDED to town numbers in this profile.

Visit the Building Permit Survey methodology page for more information.

Related Pages on HousingData.org

DHCD Housing Development Dashboard

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Downloading data 

The Vermont Community Profiles are displayed using Tableau, a software that creates interactive data visualizations. These visualizations or "vizzes" are controlled by filters, allowing users to select only the information that interests them. Data can be downloaded for other uses using the Download button on the Tableau toolbar at the bottom of the page in the following download options:

Tableau download menu

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Download troubleshooting:

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