What the City's Permit Data Shows About Renovation Work in Downtown Vancouver

What the data set is, and what one record is

The data set is called "Issued building permits" and sits on the City's Open Data Portal. One record is one building permit that the City issued. Its description says it includes all building permits issued by the City, starting in 2017.

We read it on October 4, 2026. It held 52,248 records with issue dates from January 3, 2017 to October 2, 2026, so 2026 is a part year. Each record names one of six types of work. This page covers the type "Addition / Alteration", which holds 25,846 of the 52,248 records, or 49.5 percent. The other five types cover new buildings, demolition, salvage, temporary structures and outdoor uses.

Alteration permits per year in Downtown and the West End

Downtown had the highest count of the 22 local areas in every year. The West End ranked second in six years (2019 and 2021 to 2025) and third, behind Fairview, in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2026 so far.

Across the whole period the two areas received 9,570 of the city's 25,846 alteration permits, which is 37.0 percent. The next three local areas are Fairview with 2,201, Kitsilano with 1,697 and Mount Pleasant with 1,456.

How the City groups the work

Each record carries a field named PermitCategory. The City describes it as "a high level grouping providing a focus on higher volume, lower complexity project scopes" and says it was added in December 2021. For alteration permits the field holds one of two labels, or it is empty.

In the Downtown local area, 5,023 of the 7,206 alteration permits (69.7 percent) carry the label "Renovation - Commercial/ Mixed Use - Lower Complexity". Another 1,193 (16.6 percent) carry "Renovation - Residential - Lower Complexity", and 990 (13.7 percent) have no label.

The West End has the opposite balance. Of its 2,364 alteration permits, 1,359 (57.5 percent) carry the residential label, 616 (26.1 percent) carry the commercial and mixed use label, and 389 (16.5 percent) have none.

A second field lists the uses of the building. "Multiple Dwelling" appears on 1,361 of the West End's 2,364 alteration permits (57.6 percent) and on 1,079 of Downtown's 7,206 (15.0 percent). For the whole city the figure is 5,479 of 25,846, or 21.2 percent. The data set gives no definition of Multiple Dwelling and has no field for strata or rental.

We read six West End records from 2026 that list Multiple Dwelling. Two described alterations inside one unit. Three described work on a whole building: an elevator upgrade, a window and door replacement, and an electrical upgrade.

What the data set leaves out

The records answer one question: which building permits did the City issue, and when. Several things fall outside that.

• Work that needed no building permit has no record. A count of permits is lower than the amount of renovation work done.
• Permits issued before 2017 are absent.
• Later events are absent. The description says the data "does not show current status of a permit or changes after a permit is originally issued". A record cannot confirm that the work was finished.
• The six types of work are all types of building permit. We found no electrical or gas permit type among them.
• The description warns of "some loss of quality from data entry errors and omissions, in particular where the original application date was prior to May 2016 (when permit software changed)".
• On the day we read it, 362 records had no map point, 398 had no local area and 214 had no address. The description says records without a map point are missing from the map and appear in the table.
• The City's note on the field for the description of the work says the "data file prior to 2018 does not include this field". On October 4, 2026 all 52,248 records held text in that field, including the 6,714 permits issued in 2017.

How to look up the permits issued at your own building

The lookup is free and needs no account. We tested each step on October 4, 2026.

• Open the data set's page on opendata.vancouver.ca. The link is in the sources below.
• Choose the table of records. The City's description calls it the Table view and says it holds the complete list, while the map leaves out permits that have no map point.
• Search for your building's street number and street name. The City writes an address as the number, a direction letter where the street has one, the street name in capital letters and the street type in full, such as STREET or AVENUE.
• Read the issue date, the type of work and the description of the work on each record. The description often names the floor or the unit.
• Look for a unit number in two places. On 4,777 of the 52,248 records the address ends with a # sign and a unit number. On the others, the description is where a unit number appears.

What one address can show

Many downtown addresses have a long list. The 7,206 alteration permits in Downtown were issued at 1,516 different street addresses. At 814 of those addresses the City issued one permit, and at 163 it issued ten or more. In the West End, 2,364 permits were issued at 709 addresses: one permit at 393 of them, and ten or more at 37.

A list for your building shows the permitted work the City recorded there since 2017, including work on the whole building. It gives you dated questions to put to the strata, for example whether a recorded window replacement or electrical upgrade was completed.

How we use the records before quoting

Before we quote on a downtown unit, we look up the building's address in this data set and read the descriptions. We then ask the strata about any recorded work on the building's pipes, wiring, windows or elevators, because that work affects where and when we can work in the unit.

We draw no rule from the counts. Which work needs a building permit is the City's decision, and we confirm it with the City for your scope before any start date is set.