thisblock is a Toronto block reader. You type a street address, or press the crosshair and the page uses the street address nearest your phone. It draws a circle and lists public city records inside it: newly issued business licences, active building permits for new homes and other new buildings, open demolition permits, noise exemptions, and events from the city’s festivals and events calendar.
The point is to answer a local question without making you download a spreadsheet. What got a licence near this corner? What is allowed to be built? What is allowed to come down? Which nights can already be loud? The map uses the city’s own address points, so a downtown sixplex is not dropped onto a street of the same name in Scarborough.
Where the records come from
Every card is built from City of Toronto open data. Business licences come from Municipal Licensing and Standards. Building permits are the active permit file from Toronto Building. Noise exemptions are the current noise-exemption file. Events are the festivals and events calendar. Proposals are open development applications. The next council sitting comes from the council-approved 2026 schedule, and the room addresses are the civic centres those bodies use. Coordinates come from the Toronto One Address Repository. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Toronto. The City of Toronto does not operate this site and does not endorse it.
Licences shown were issued on or after 1 July 2025, are not cancelled, and are for a place a person can visit: restaurants, takeout, patios, salons, shops, laundries, amusement, and entertainment. Trades, taxis, and mobile signs are left out because they are not a new room on the block. Businesses searches that licence file and also interior building permits that name a business, which is how a chain can show up before it has a licence. Permits shown on a block as new homes were issued on or after 1 January 2025 and are still in the active file. Plumbing, mechanical, and drain permits are left out. A repair inside an existing apartment building is not listed as a new tower. A permit application is not an opening day.
What a card does not mean
A licence date is the day the city issued or renewed the licence. It is not an opening day. A permit is permission. Work can sit for months after the permit is issued. A noise exemption is a signed exception to the noise bylaw for a named place and a named stretch of dates. It is not a prediction that you will hear it from your kitchen.
The city refreshes these files when staff update them. thisblock can only be as current as that refresh. If a file is late, the page is late.
Who publishes it
Simon publishes thisblock from Toronto. The contact address is [email protected]. Questions about a licence, a permit, or a noise exemption should go to the City of Toronto, because this site cannot change the city file.
Advertising, after Google approves the site, is Google AdSense. Ads load only if you choose Allow on the home page. The privacy page explains the cookies and the city data.