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OpenCounter helps entrepreneurs navigate the regulatory jungle they face when starting a business.

A joint project of the City of Santa Cruz, CA and Code for America.

The city of Santa Cruz wants to encourage folks to start local businesses, which create jobs and boost economic activity.

Opening a new business involves and requires coordination between many different city departments - Planning, Building, Finance, utilities, others…

…each of which has its own processes, procedures, forms and fees, and hours that they’re open…

…so it can be hard for someone thinking of starting a business to even know where to begin!

OpenCounter aims to answer the following questions for new business owners:

1. Which regulations apply to me?

2. What do I need to do?

3. How long will it take?

4. How much will it cost?

Business owners told about what it took to get their business off the ground, and what might have made the process easier for them. City employees shared processes and procedures, documentation and forms, and walked us through how they guide new business owners through their required paperwork.

We took all this information, wrote an overview of the business permitting process, created an interactive zoning map, wrote calculators for many of the fees that new businesses pay, and stitched it into a step-by-step guide and questionnaire that guides applicants through the permitting process.

OpenCounter is alpha software. Use at your own risk.

TBD

In the spirit of [free software], everyone is encouraged to help improve this project.

[free-sw]: www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html

Here are some ways you can contribute:

• by using alpha, beta, and prerelease versions

• by reporting bugs

• by suggesting new features

• by translating to a new language

• by writing or editing documentation

• by writing specifications

• by writing code (**no patch is too small**: fix typos, add comments, clean up inconsistent whitespace)

• by refactoring code

• by reviewing patches

1. Fork the project.

2. Create a topic branch.

3. Implement your feature or bug fix.

4. Commit and push your changes.

5. Submit a pull request.

Copyright © 2012 Code for America. See [LICENSE][] for details.

[license]: github.com/codeforamerica/cfa_template/blob/master/LICENSE.mkd