civus
Now live · Properties · People & organizations · Decisions

Look up anything in Philadelphia’s public record.

Type an address, a name, or a phrase. Civus connects the record around it: hearings, decisions, permits, and the exact moment it came up on tape, all cited straight to the source.

48,289Properties / Cross-source cited timelines
8,982People & organizations / Profiles built from the record
41,835Decisions on the record / ZBA appeals & Historical Commission
6,550Proceedings / Searchable across 4 bodies

The receipts are gold

Search returns the exact passage, with the word you searched lit in gold then links straight to the official transcript and source PDF.

And every property carries its own receipt: the hearings, permits, and decisions on the record for it, down to the moment it came up on tape. Same for the people and organizations in the room.

right to counsel47 results
Philadelphia City CouncilStated Meeting02 Oct 2024 · 01:23:45

“...the resolution affirms the city’s commitment to implementing a right to counsel in housing court proceedings, including eviction...”

Jump to transcript & source PDF
Zoning Board of AdjustmentHearing video14:02

“...the applicant has applied for a use variance to operate a mixed commercial and residential use in the R-10 district...”

Play from 14:02
1244 Ellsworth StOPA 021207100Property record
ZBA appealGranted20 Apr 2022

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

Every record resolves to the parcel and the people it touches, so one page holds the whole story, with the basis for each link shown.

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

ApprovedDenied
20222023202420252026

By review type

Alteration
48%
Nomination
34%
Informational
8%
Other
5%
60%Approval rate
760Demolitions 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

What Civus is building next.

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.

Searchable now

Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA)

Every hearing since 2020, searchable down to the moment a word was said.

Searchable now

Philadelphia City Council

Official stenographer PDF transcripts, speaker-segmented and searchable.

Searchable now

Philadelphia Historical Commission

Hearings, designations, and the historic decisions dashboard.

Searchable now

Minutes & document packets

Historical Commission minutes and supporting documents, back to the 1950s. Council document trails come next.

Searchable now

Registered Community Organizations

Profiles for every RCO, linked to the appeals they are noticed on and the properties in their area.

Searchable now

City datasets

L&I appeals with official outcomes, building permits, and 311 requests, cross-linked to properties and hearings.

In progress

Names from the transcripts

People and organizations named in Council transcripts now appear on their profiles. ZBA speech is next.

Coming

More of the record

Violations, deeds, and the rest of the paper trail, one dataset at a time.

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.