Building permits, municipal decisions, and property records each come with their own vocabulary, and the same term often means different things depending on which county you are working in. This glossary defines the terms that come up most often in building permit and land use work, with a link to a full explainer for each one. Definitions are written for contractors, developers, analysts, and anyone who wants to learn more about permit and property data.
A building permit issued immediately at the permit counter, without a formal plan review cycle. Also called an OTC or express permit. The applicant presents project details and leaves with an approved permit the same day. Limited to pre-approved project types requiring minimal review.
→ What Is an Over the Counter Permit?
Authorizes construction grading, the earthwork that prepares a site for building. Covers cut, fill, compaction, and rough and finish grading to create level building pads, stable slopes, and correct drainage. Permitting is strict because earthwork can create risks that extend past the property line.
Authorizes work inside the public road corridor, the land a city, county, or state controls for streets, sidewalks, and utilities. Cutting pavement, trenching, closing a lane, boring under a street, or tapping a water main all require one. This is separate from any building permit for the project itself.
→ What Is a Right of Way Permit?
Authorizes work on a building's heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and gas piping. Replacing a furnace, adding ductwork, setting a rooftop unit, or running a gas line to an appliance requires one. It is one of the three trade permits alongside electrical and plumbing, and projects often need more than one.
→ What Is a Mechanical Permit?
Required to tear off and replace a roof covering. Building departments treat a full replacement as structural work on the building envelope, so a permit applies even when the new material matches the old. The narrow exceptions cover small repairs rather than replacements.
→ Do You Need a Permit to Replace a Roof?
The approval required before installing a rooftop or ground-mounted solar array. It typically pairs a building permit for structural load with an electrical permit for the interconnection, reviewed to confirm the roof can carry the system and the wiring meets code.
The official body or agency responsible for enforcing building codes, safety standards, and permitting processes in a given area. Which agency serves as the AHJ depends on location, and can be a city building department, a county agency, a state office, or a fire district.
→ What Is an AHJ in Construction?
A professional who manages the building permit application process on a client's behalf, from initial research to final approval. Expediters typically come from construction, planning, architecture, or real estate, and their value comes from process knowledge plus direct relationships with plan reviewers in specific jurisdictions.
Any construction, renovation, or improvement performed on a property without obtaining the required building permits from the local AHJ. Because the work was never reviewed or inspected, it carries code compliance, insurance, financing, and disclosure risk that surfaces at sale.
An official document issued by a building department certifying that a building complies with applicable codes and is safe to occupy for its intended use. A CO confirms three things: construction matches approved plans, all required inspections passed, and the building is classified for a specific use.
→ What Is a Certificate of Occupancy?
Some electrical work can be done without a permit. It is generally limited to the like-for-like replacement of a device or fixture. The deciding factor is usually not the size of the job but whether it alters the building's electrical system. Adding a circuit, altering concealed wiring, or working on the service panel falls outside it.
→ What Electrical Work Can Be Done Without a Permit?
Construction classifications group buildings by how their wall, floor, and roof materials resist fire. Two systems share the name, but insurers use one to set premiums while building codes use the other. A classification assigned years ago can stop matching the building after permitted structural work.
Want to know more about the data types that Shovels offers? Check out our Data Dictionary and Coverage Dashboard.
A formal change to the zoning designation of a parcel. That classification controls what can be built, how the land can be used, and how densely it can be developed. Rezoning requires a formal approval process: planning department review, public hearing, and a vote by the local governing body.
An approval allowing a land use that is not permitted by right under current zoning, but that the zoning code lists as a possible conditional use. Reviewed case by case and subject to conditions protecting surrounding properties. Also called a special use permit. Classic examples: a church, school, or cell tower in a residential zone.
→ What Is a Conditional Use Permit?
The legal right to develop a property in a particular way, granted through a series of government approvals. Entitlement resolves the uncertainty of raw land by securing the zoning, use, and site approvals a project needs. Distinct from building permits, which come later and authorize the actual construction.
A formal exception to the zoning code, granted to a single property for a single rule. It lets one parcel deviate from one requirement (setback, height, lot size, parking) while the rest of the code still applies. Granted by a board of zoning appeals after a public hearing.
A land use policy linking approval of new residential development to the inclusion of affordable units. A set percentage of units must be rented or sold below market rate to income-qualified households for a defined affordability period. Not public housing, not a voucher, and not a change to the zoning map.
→ What Is Inclusionary Zoning?
A change to zoning rules allowing more to be built on the same land: more units, more height, more floor area, or new uses. Upzoning increases a parcel's development capacity and usually its land value, making upzoned parcels an early signal of future construction.
A legally defined unit of land with fixed boundaries, recorded ownership, and a unique county-assigned identifier. The fundamental unit of property in the public record system. A parcel is defined by its legal boundary, not by what sits on it, so it may hold a house, a warehouse, or nothing.
→ What Is a Parcel in Real Estate?
A unique identifier assigned by the county assessor to each parcel of land in the public record. The primary key connecting a property across tax assessments, building permits, title documents, and ownership records. The APN stays with the parcel, not the owner, and persists through changes of ownership.
→ What Is an Assessor Parcel Number?
An official county document defining and displaying the boundaries of individual parcels within a jurisdiction. Each parcel appears with its APN, boundary lines, dimensions, and relationship to adjacent parcels and streets. Maintained by the county assessor or recorder, and sometimes called a tax map.
Structured information about individual parcels of land, compiled from public county records and organized into a queryable, standardized dataset. The primary source is the county assessor, tracking ownership, assessed value, and physical characteristics. County recorders add deed and title records for transaction history.
→ What Parcels Data Is, and What It Includes
The horizontal area a structure covers where it meets the ground, bounded by the outside face of its exterior walls and stored in spatial data as a polygon. It is ground-level area only, not total floor area, so it does not account for the number of floors.
→ What Is a Building Footprint?
The party listed as owning a parcel in public records. The county assessor names the owner for tax purposes, while the recorder holds the deeds establishing legal title. Assessor data is derived from those deeds but often lags behind, so a recent sale may still show the prior owner.
Shovels turns permit, parcel, and property records from jurisdictions nationwide into standardized, searchable data.
