Methodology

How Halifax Housing Pulse reads development momentum

Halifax Housing Pulse turns public HRM records into a small set of indicators for two separate domains: observed building permit activity and planning applications moving through HRM's planning process.

Building permit indicators summarize recorded permit activity by date, community, project type, value, and units. They describe permits issued or recorded by HRM; they are not measures of construction starts, completed homes, occupancy, affordability, or whether housing need is being met.

For live permit records, monthly totals are grouped by permit issuance date. Unit counts use HRM's net-new units field when available. The current permit summary does not exclude cancelled or expired statuses, counts positive units on renovation records, and does not explicitly dedupe records by permit number.

The headline change compares the latest 12 complete calendar months of permit activity with the preceding non-overlapping 12-month window. This reduces the influence of month-to-month timing noise. Activity from the current partial month is reported separately and excluded from headline, district, project-type, and map totals. When a dataset contains fewer than 24 complete months, the prior-window comparison is shown as unavailable.

Permit coordinates are assigned to HRM's current municipal polling districts using a point-in-polygon test. District population figures are estimates, not official district counts: 2021 Census dissemination-block populations are aggregated to dissemination areas, then each area's population is assigned to the current district containing its Statistics Canada representative point. Rates per 10,000 residents combine these 2021 estimates with the selected rolling permit window and should be read as comparative indicators.

Planning application indicators summarize proposals moving through HRM's planning process. Applications may be in review, revised, approved, denied, cancelled, closed, or otherwise unresolved. They do not represent confirmed housing supply and do not necessarily result in a building permit or construction.

The dashboard groups source records into consistent categories while preserving unfamiliar planning statuses as unknown. Planning applications are not mapped because the published source does not provide record-level locations.

Current coverage includes 5100 permit records through 2026-07-31 and 598 planning application records. Source publication and dashboard update times may differ.

Permit source: HRM Building Permits ArcGIS FeatureServer

District boundaries: HRM Municipal Polling Districts

Population reference: Statistics Canada 2021 Geographic Attribute File

Planning source: HRM PPL&C Planning Applications