← Back to all datasets
building Permits & Development πŸ›οΈ Houston Permitting Center aging

Houston Building Permits

Building, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits issued by the Houston Permitting Center.

πŸ—‚οΈ
300
Records
🚩
19
Red flags
βœ…
91
Quality score
πŸ”„
weekly
Update frequency

Data Detective

Tip

Scan the map for red dots and check the chart for spikes. Big jumps or drops are usually where the interesting questions live.

Source: The numbers above come straight from Houston Open Data.

πŸ“ Data quality breakdown

How healthy is this dataset across five dimensions?

Completeness 94/100
Freshness 70/100
Location 99/100
Consistency 91/100
Usefulness 100/100

πŸ—ΊοΈ Where the data lives

Up to 300 geolocated records. Red markers are flagged values.

πŸ“ˆ Activity over time

Record volume by month, or by status when no dates exist.

🚩 Open red flags

Suspicious values our scanner caught β€” see if you agree.

🚩 High · future date
95% sure

This record is dated in the future.

occurred_at 2026-07-15
A 311 request can't be created next year. A future date usually means someone typed the date wrong or a computer formatted it incorrectly.

Next step: Check for a typo or a time-zone/format bug at the source.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—
🚩 High · future date
95% sure

This record is dated in the future.

occurred_at 2026-07-13
A 311 request can't be created next year. A future date usually means someone typed the date wrong or a computer formatted it incorrectly.

Next step: Check for a typo or a time-zone/format bug at the source.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—
🚩 High · future date
95% sure

This record is dated in the future.

occurred_at 2026-07-07
A 311 request can't be created next year. A future date usually means someone typed the date wrong or a computer formatted it incorrectly.

Next step: Check for a typo or a time-zone/format bug at the source.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—
🚩 High · impossible negative
85% sure

A count or amount is negative where that should be impossible.

numeric_value -9
You can't have negative days to fix a pothole, or negative permits. A negative number here is a sign of a data-entry or calculation mistake.

Next step: Confirm whether negatives represent refunds/corrections or are simply errors.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—
🚩 High · impossible negative
85% sure

A count or amount is negative where that should be impossible.

numeric_value -52
You can't have negative days to fix a pothole, or negative permits. A negative number here is a sign of a data-entry or calculation mistake.

Next step: Confirm whether negatives represent refunds/corrections or are simply errors.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—
🚩 High · impossible negative
85% sure

A count or amount is negative where that should be impossible.

numeric_value -43
You can't have negative days to fix a pothole, or negative permits. A negative number here is a sign of a data-entry or calculation mistake.

Next step: Confirm whether negatives represent refunds/corrections or are simply errors.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—
🚩 Medium · missing value
90% sure

The field "reported_by" is empty in 33% of records.

reported_by 33% empty
Think of a class roster where most students never filled in their phone number. If "reported_by" is blank 33% of the time, we can't trust any total or map that depends on it.

Next step: Ask the owning department why this field is so often blank.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—
🚩 Medium · broken coordinates
85% sure

Coordinates are missing, 0/0, or outside the Houston area.

lat/lng 0, 0
A point at 0,0 sits in the ocean off Africa. If a Houston event maps there, the location data is broken and the map will mislead people.

Next step: Re-geocode the address or drop the broken point from maps.

Houston Building Permits Source β†—

⚠️ Known issues

  • β€’Some permits never get an issue date
  • β€’Valuation field often blank

πŸ’‘ Public use cases

  • β€’See where Houston is building
  • β€’Track permit processing times
  • β€’Spot development booms

πŸ“ Geo fields

latitude longitude zip

πŸ•’ Time fields

application_date issue_date

Records: 300

Update frequency: weekly

Last imported: 23 hours ago

Search the Houston Open Data catalog β†—