Cambridge Building Permits for Additions and Alterations with FEMA and Commercial Details

Permits related to the construction or alteration of existing buildings in Cambridge, derived from the city's ViewPoint permitting system. The data includes columns for conditioned floor area, FEMA compliance details, proposed HERS ratings, and commercial use classifications. The dataset was last updated on March 30, 2026.

Use Cases

• Classify commercial building use types using columns like `commercial mercantile`, `commercial institutional`, and `commercial high hazard`.
• Analyze energy efficiency trends by examining `proposed HERS rating` and `conditioned floor area`.
• Assess flood zone and stormwater compliance for construction projects using `FEMA stormwater description` and `FEMA earthwork regrading` fields.
• Track residential development changes with columns such as `Residential change`, `proposed created residential use`, and `thousand gross sq ft residential use`.

Strengths

• Includes detailed FEMA compliance and stormwater management columns, suggesting regulatory depth.
• Contains specific commercial and residential use classifications for granular analysis.
• Geospatial `Coordinates` column enables location-based mapping and analysis.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

data.cambridgema.gov

Collection Method

Derived from Cambridge's ViewPoint permitting system.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-30 11:58:20; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA