| --- |
| license: cc-by-4.0 |
| language: |
| - en |
| - fr |
| size_categories: |
| - 1K<n<10K |
| tags: |
| - canada |
| - construction |
| - real-estate |
| - permits |
| - building-permits |
| - municipal |
| - rag |
| - llm-training |
| pretty_name: BuildData — Canadian Construction Records (Sample) |
| configs: |
| - config_name: default |
| data_files: |
| - split: train |
| path: builddata_sample.jsonl |
| --- |
| |
| # BuildData — Canadian Construction Records (Sample) |
|
|
| **Sample of 5,000 Canadian municipal construction records across 54 cities.** |
| Mix of building permits, business licences, development permits, planning |
| applications, and inspections. Last 3 months of data from the full |
| [BuildData API](https://builddata.ca). |
|
|
| > **Want the full dataset?** 8.6M+ records across 60 cities, normalized + geocoded, |
| > daily refresh, query by city / address / value / type / date. |
| > **[Get an API key →](https://builddata.ca/pricing)** |
|
|
| ## What's in here |
|
|
| | Field | Type | Description | |
| |---|---|---| |
| | `source_id` | string | Originating system (city's open-data portal) | |
| | `entity_type` | string | `permit`, `licence`, `development_permit`, `planning_application`, `inspection` | |
| | `record_id` | string | Stable per-record identifier from the source | |
| | `municipality` | string | City name | |
| | `event_date` | string (ISO date) | Issue date for permits/licences, application date for planning | |
| | `category` | string | Permit type / licence type / planning stage | |
| | `data` | object | Full raw record from the source (JSON) — addresses, values, descriptions, GIS data | |
|
|
| ## Composition (sample) |
|
|
| | entity_type | rows | |
| |---|---| |
| | permit | 2,500 | |
| | licence | 700 | |
| | development_permit | 700 | |
| | planning_application | 700 | |
| | inspection | 400 | |
| |
| 54 unique municipalities represented. The full dataset spans 60 cities including |
| Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Québec City, |
| Halifax, Saint John, plus 50 more. |
| |
| ## Use cases |
| |
| - **RAG / agents** — ground LLM responses in real Canadian construction activity |
| - **Domain fine-tuning** — train models on construction vocabulary, NOC codes, GIS schemas |
| - **Real-estate intelligence** — track building permits as a leading indicator of property changes |
| - **Construction lead generation** — discover contractors, developers, suppliers active in a market |
| - **Insurance underwriting** — property age, renovation history, code compliance signals |
| - **Schema exploration** before committing to API integration |
| |
| ## Limitations of this sample |
| |
| - **Snapshot only** — frozen 2026-02-25 to 2026-05-25. New permits issued daily; this sample will not reflect them. |
| - **5K rows** — full dataset is 8.6M+. Sample is enough to test schema, prompts, prototypes; not enough for production analytics. |
| - **No querying** — can't filter by city, value range, address, or date. Use the API for that. |
| - **No geocoded coordinates surfaced** — the full API returns `latitude`/`longitude`; sample omits them to keep payload small (still inside `data` for some sources). |
| |
| ## Production access |
| |
| - **Docs:** https://builddata.ca/docs |
| - **Pricing:** https://builddata.ca/pricing — free tier 25 req/day, Pro $49/mo 1K req/day |
| - **Quickstart:** |
| ```bash |
| curl "https://api.builddata.ca/permit?municipality=Toronto&limit=10" \ |
| -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" |
| ``` |
| - **Export:** `https://api.builddata.ca/permit/export?format=csv&limit=1000` (no key, JSON/CSV/XLSX) |
| |
| ## License & attribution |
| |
| Data sourced from Canadian municipal open-data portals (Toronto CKAN, Vancouver |
| Opendatasoft, Calgary Socrata, Edmonton Socrata, etc.). All source data is |
| under open government / municipal licences. Sample redistribution is permitted |
| under CC-BY-4.0. |
| |
| ## Contact |
| |
| - API and enterprise inquiries: nicolas@builddata.ca |
| - Bug reports: https://github.com/NicolasPrimeau/Nimbus (or via the contact link on builddata.ca) |
| |
| ## Mirror locations |
| |
| The same sample is published in three places — pick whichever you prefer: |
| |
| - **Hugging Face:** https://huggingface.co/datasets/nimbusdata/builddata-canadian-construction-sample |
| - **Kaggle:** https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/niexon/builddata-canadian-construction-sample |
| - **GitHub:** https://github.com/nimbusdata/builddata-sample |
| |
