Permits & building activity

What's being built in Petaluma?

See the types of permits active now, what is waiting in the open queue, and how filing volume has changed.

Permits refreshed Nov 1, 8:05 am · refreshes weekly.

Showing 28,274 residential permits from 1900 to today. Records from before 2021 are legacy imports.

Open queue

Waiting for a decision

127

applied for in the last 12 months, not yet issued

127 residential permits are waiting

36 are Residential Alteration, Remodel, Repair, the largest category in the queue.

90 older open records, many never closed out by the city

How we count this

A permit counts as waiting when it has no issue date, its status is not terminal (Void, Voided, Withdrawn, Denied, Expired, Complete, Finaled, Final, Plan Approval Expired, Certificate of Occupancy Issued., Closed, Cancelled, Canceled), it was applied for in the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.

Active permit types

Residential permits: Residential Alteration, Remodel, Repair leads

246 active permits are Residential Alteration, Remodel, Repair.

How we count this

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 2,811 in 2022

Petaluma recorded 2,421 permit filings in 2025, the most recent complete year. 2026 is still in progress, with 1,858 filings so far.