Scan the Block · for contractor or trade
What the city already knows, before you price the job.
A bid is a bet on what a wall is hiding. The permit history, the open obligations and the notices an inspector already filed are public record before you ever pick up a phone — read the parcel in seconds, and know what a prior contractor left open before you inherit it.
The questions it answers
- How tall is it, and how much ground does it cover?
- Is this address in a very high fire hazard severity zone?
- What has been reported to 311 on this block?
- Is there mapped serpentine here, which regulates earthmoving?
- What has been reported to 311 on this block?
- What has been filed against this building in the last year?
The sections that earn their keep
What is standing on itThe city's own building footprints for the parcel: how many buildings, what kind, how many storeys, how much ground each covers, and the name it goes by. The county roll carries no year built, no floor area and no storey count, so this is that half of the record.
What was reported on the blockPolice incident reports, 311 service requests and parking citations within the radius, by year and category, each against what an average Oakland area of the same size records.
Pest and infestation noticesRodent, cockroach and bedbug citations, split from general sanitation — the same signal, for a different trade.
The ground under it, and the fire above itLiquefaction and landslide susceptibility, the state's fire hazard severity zone, the wildland urban interface, the NEHRP soil class and mapped serpentine — six of the city's own layers, read at the address. A layer that maps no zone here says so, and one that did not answer is marked unread rather than counted as clear.
The permit record, in fullEvery filing on the parcel, dated, with what it declared and whether it closed.
See it on a real address
Run any Oakland address and the report reads that city's portal live, at the moment you ask. Every report is free, and there is nothing to sign up for.
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