civus
Searchable public records · More sources filling in

Look up anything in Philadelphia’s public record.

Type an address, a name, or a phrase. Search hearings, Council transcripts, and zoning appeals, cited to the source. Permits, violations, and 311 are filling in, source by source. See current coverage.

52,418Properties / Cross-source cited timelines
9,096People & organizations / Profiles built from the record
42,008Decisions on the record / ZBA appeals & Historical Commission
6,718Proceedings / Searchable across 4 bodies

The receipts are gold

Follow a passage back to the record.

The highlighted words come from an official Council transcript. Open the passage or its source PDF.

Property pages connect hearings, permits, and decisions where records are available, with links to the supporting sources.

Philadelphia City Council

Transcript example

Stated meeting · Chief Clerk reading a resolution

“…examining solutions that would improve the safety and stability of rental housing, including the right to counsel.”

segment 106

1244 Ellsworth St

OPA 021207100Property record
ZBA appealGranted

Legalization of a rear deck and a roof deck with access structure, accessory to a single-family home.

Watch the deliberation · 2:35:03
The full timeline: hearings, permits, and decisions on the record for this parcel

How it works

From a question to a citation in three steps.

01

Search it or look it up

Full-text search across transcripts and decisions, or go straight to a property, a person, or an organization.

02

See it connected

Property, person, and organization pages bring linked records together, with the basis for each connection shown. Coverage and unresolved names can leave gaps.

03

Link to the source

Every claim carries its citation: jump to the official PDF, or play the hearing from the second it was said.

Historical Commission

The Historic Decisions Dashboard.

Explore Philadelphia Historical Commission decisions by year, outcome, and review type. Every chart links back to searchable source minutes.

Browse historic decisions

Decisions by year & outcome

Other outcomes include deferrals, withdrawals, mixed actions, and records without a decision.

Approved share counts approved records as a percentage of all dated, source-linked records across all years. Committee records may include recommendations.

By review type

Alteration
48%
Nomination
34%
Informational
8%
Other
5%
60%Approved share
765Demolitions reviewed

Ask the record

Ask a question, get a cited answer.

Ask reads the record and answers with citations to the exact passages. When the record doesn’t say, it says so instead of guessing.

Try Ask

The roadmap

Coverage and next steps.

Civus is building the connected public record of Philadelphia government: what was said, what was decided, and what happened to the places and people involved, one body at a time. See coverage by source.

Available now

Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA)

Searchable hearing transcripts with timed citations. Older recordings continue to fill in.

Available now

Philadelphia City Council

Official stenographer PDF transcripts, speaker-segmented and searchable.

Available now

Philadelphia Historical Commission

Hearings, designations, and the historic decisions dashboard.

Available now

Minutes & document packets

Historical Commission minutes, Council agenda documents, and official bill documents linked from legislation pages.

Available now

Registered Community Organizations

RCO profiles with registry details and linked appeals, properties, and meeting notices where available.

Available now

City datasets

Citywide L&I appeals, plus permits, violations, licenses, demolitions, and 311 requests on parcels in the hearing record. These datasets are still filling in.

In progress

Names from the transcripts

People and organizations are linked to transcript passages where names have been resolved. Coverage varies by source.

Coming

More of the record

Citywide permits, violations, licenses, and 311 coverage are planned. Today these records are limited to parcels in the hearing record.

Coming

A community layer

Curated context that neighbors maintain, clearly labeled and separate from the official record.

Stay posted

Get notified when a new source goes live.

Be the first to search the next public body added to Civus.