A permit counts as waiting when it has no issue date, its status is not terminal (Void, Voided, Withdrawn, Denied, Expired, Complete, Finaled, Final, Plan Approval Expired, Certificate of Occupancy Issued., Closed, Cancelled, Canceled), it was applied for in the last 12 months (365 days), and it is not a fire inspection record. The 12-month cutoff keeps the number meaningful: older open records are mostly leftovers the city never closed out, not live applications. The scraper re-checks old open permits monthly, so statuses that went stale get corrected.
A permit counts as active when its status is still open (issued or in review, for example) and it was applied for in the last 3 years (1095 days). Fire inspection records and certificates of occupancy are left out: they are administrative, not construction, and stay open long after their work ends. This window is longer than the 12-month window on the waiting card, so a permit applied for one to 3 years ago that is still in review counts as active here and as an older open record there.
Annual volume
Permit filings peaked at 291 in 2023
Petaluma recorded 199 permit filings in 2025, the most recent complete year. 2026 is still in progress, with 142 filings so far.