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TownIntel Specification

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TownIntel

Where Data Meets Civic Duty

Overview

TownIntel is an open-source civic intelligence platform designed to connect census, population, property, rental registration, landlord compliance, occupancy, municipal records, and geographic data.

TownIntel helps communities identify discrepancies between reported population and housing activity, determine whether rental properties are properly registered, track required municipal certifications, analyze housing conditions, and provide transparent civic intelligence without exposing tenant identities.

The platform is designed for research, transparency, planning, compliance analysis, public information, and informed community decision-making.

Objectives

  • Compare census population data with declared rental and occupancy information.
  • Identify properties that may be operating as rentals without appropriate registration.
  • Track municipal rental requirements and certifications.
  • Connect property, ownership, tax, permit, inspection, and zoning information.
  • Identify discrepancies and anomalies across public datasets.
  • Provide geographic and historical housing intelligence.
  • Improve municipal transparency and public access to civic data.
  • Support researchers, journalists, housing organizations, and community groups.
  • Protect tenant privacy through aggregation and responsible data handling.
  • Provide extensible modules that municipalities and communities can enable as needed.

Core Architecture

TownIntel uses a modular intelligence architecture in which each core module manages a defined civic data domain. Modules can operate independently while sharing normalized records, geographic references, historical data, validation results, and analytical signals.

The platform supports optional plugin modules that extend intelligence capabilities without requiring every deployment to enable every feature.

Core Modules

Census Intelligence

  • Census population records.
  • Census population by geographic area.
  • Census household counts.
  • Historical census comparisons.
  • Population growth and decline.
  • Population density.
  • Household trends.
  • Geographic population mapping.
  • Census tract and block-level analysis where available.
  • Census API integration.
  • Comparison of census population with other population indicators.

Property Intelligence

  • Parcel records.
  • Property addresses.
  • Parcel identifiers.
  • Property ownership records.
  • Ownership history.
  • Property classifications.
  • Square footage.
  • Number of units.
  • Year built.
  • Renovation information where available.
  • Zoning classifications.
  • Property tax information.
  • Property geographic coordinates.
  • Parcel boundary information.
  • Historical property records.

Rental Registration

  • Rental registration status.
  • Rental license records.
  • Registration dates.
  • Renewal dates.
  • Expiration dates.
  • Registered rental inventory.
  • Registration history.
  • Registration validation.
  • Registration discrepancy detection.
  • Potentially unregistered rental identification.
  • Municipal rental requirements.
  • Registration compliance reporting.

Landlord Compliance

  • Landlord registration records where legally available.
  • Certificates of occupancy.
  • Fire inspection records.
  • Lead certification records.
  • Safety inspection records.
  • Rental inspection records.
  • Local permits.
  • Required certifications.
  • Inspection dates.
  • Inspection results.
  • Deficiencies.
  • Corrective actions.
  • Certification expiration monitoring.
  • Compliance status.
  • Historical compliance records.
  • Municipal compliance reporting.

Occupancy Intelligence

  • Estimated occupancy by property.
  • Estimated occupancy by geographic area.
  • Unit-to-resident ratios.
  • Historical occupancy trends.
  • Seasonal occupancy analysis.
  • Multi-family occupancy analysis.
  • Occupancy anomaly detection.
  • Population-to-housing comparisons.
  • Aggregated occupancy indicators.
  • Occupancy trend reporting.

Discrepancy Detection

  • Census versus registered rental comparisons.
  • Population versus housing comparisons.
  • Rental registration discrepancies.
  • Certification discrepancies.
  • Inspection discrepancies.
  • Property record discrepancies.
  • Occupancy anomalies.
  • Missing-record detection.
  • Conflicting-record detection.
  • Historical data inconsistencies.
  • Data quality scoring.
  • Exception reporting.
  • Evidence-based discrepancy records.
  • Configurable discrepancy thresholds.

Municipal Analytics

  • Town-level housing statistics.
  • Neighborhood-level statistics.
  • Block-level statistics.
  • ZIP code analysis.
  • Population metrics.
  • Rental registration metrics.
  • Compliance metrics.
  • Certification metrics.
  • Inspection metrics.
  • Housing inventory metrics.
  • Historical trend analysis.
  • Municipal comparison reports.
  • Community-level dashboards.
  • Custom reporting.

Geographic Intelligence

  • Interactive property maps.
  • Parcel maps.
  • Population maps.
  • Rental registration maps.
  • Compliance maps.
  • Housing density maps.
  • Heat maps.
  • Neighborhood boundaries.
  • Ward boundaries.
  • Census tract boundaries.
  • Census block boundaries.
  • Zoning layers.
  • Property classification layers.
  • Inspection layers.
  • Violation layers.
  • Permit layers.
  • Geographic filtering.
  • Geographic comparisons.
  • Location-based analytics.

Optional Plugin Modules

Utility Intelligence Plugin

  • Aggregated water usage analysis.
  • Aggregated electric usage analysis.
  • Aggregated gas usage analysis.
  • Occupancy estimation from aggregated utility patterns.
  • Seasonal usage analysis.
  • Unusual usage detection.
  • Property-level utility trend analysis.
  • Geographic utility patterns.

Utility Intelligence must not expose individual utility account information or private customer data.

Vacancy Intelligence Plugin

  • Potential vacancy indicators.
  • Long-term vacancy detection.
  • Seasonal vacancy patterns.
  • Geographic vacancy analysis.
  • Property vacancy history.
  • Vacancy trend reporting.
  • Housing availability indicators.

Turnover Intelligence Plugin

  • Rental turnover indicators.
  • Occupancy change detection.
  • Registration change tracking.
  • Property status transitions.
  • Turnover trends by geographic area.
  • Historical turnover analysis.

Violation Tracking Plugin

  • Housing violations.
  • Property violations.
  • Rental violations.
  • Inspection violations.
  • Violation dates.
  • Violation status.
  • Resolution tracking.
  • Repeated violation detection.
  • Geographic violation patterns.
  • Historical violation analysis.

Tax Intelligence Plugin

  • Property tax records.
  • Tax assessment history.
  • Tax payment status where publicly available.
  • Tax delinquency indicators.
  • Assessment changes.
  • Property valuation trends.
  • Geographic tax analysis.
  • Tax-related property anomalies.

Permit Intelligence Plugin

  • Building permits.
  • Rental permits.
  • Renovation permits.
  • Construction permits.
  • Occupancy permits.
  • Permit status.
  • Permit dates.
  • Permit history.
  • Permit expiration.
  • Permit-to-property matching.
  • Permit discrepancy detection.

Housing Market Plugin

  • Property value trends.
  • Rental market indicators.
  • Housing inventory analysis.
  • Rental inventory analysis.
  • Property turnover trends.
  • Geographic market comparisons.
  • Housing affordability indicators.
  • Historical market trends.

AI Intelligence Modules

Anomaly Detection Engine

  • Identify unusual relationships between datasets.
  • Detect population and housing anomalies.
  • Detect registration anomalies.
  • Detect compliance anomalies.
  • Detect unusual occupancy patterns.
  • Rank anomalies by confidence.
  • Provide supporting data signals.
  • Maintain explainable anomaly records.
  • Allow configurable thresholds.

Compliance Prediction Engine

  • Identify properties that may require additional review.
  • Estimate potential registration gaps.
  • Identify approaching certification expirations.
  • Detect recurring compliance patterns.
  • Prioritize records for human review.
  • Provide confidence indicators.
  • Preserve the underlying evidence supporting predictions.

AI-generated findings are informational and must not automatically constitute enforcement decisions.

Population Forecast Engine

  • Historical population analysis.
  • Population growth projections.
  • Population decline projections.
  • Housing-to-population projections.
  • Geographic population forecasting.
  • Scenario analysis.
  • Forecast confidence indicators.

Trend Intelligence Engine

  • Detect emerging housing trends.
  • Identify changing registration patterns.
  • Analyze compliance trends.
  • Detect geographic shifts.
  • Compare historical periods.
  • Identify recurring patterns.
  • Generate evidence-based trend reports.

Public Portal

  • Search by property address.
  • Search by parcel.
  • Search by neighborhood.
  • Search by block.
  • Search by municipality.
  • View available public property information.
  • View rental registration status.
  • View applicable compliance records.
  • View aggregated occupancy information.
  • View public maps.
  • View public reports.
  • View historical trends.
  • Filter records geographically.
  • Access public data summaries.
  • Provide privacy-preserving reporting.

Municipal Portal

  • Municipal dashboards.
  • Housing inventory monitoring.
  • Rental registration monitoring.
  • Compliance monitoring.
  • Inspection monitoring.
  • Certification monitoring.
  • Geographic analysis.
  • Historical analysis.
  • Exception management.
  • Data quality monitoring.
  • Custom reporting.
  • Administrative review workflows.
  • Human approval for consequential actions.

Administrative Intelligence

  • Data management.
  • Record validation.
  • Record reconciliation.
  • Import management.
  • Data quality assessment.
  • Duplicate detection.
  • Source verification.
  • Historical record management.
  • Audit logging.
  • User management.
  • Permission management.
  • System configuration.
  • Module configuration.
  • Plugin configuration.
  • Review workflows.

Data Import

TownIntel supports integration with legally available public and authorized data sources, including:

  • United States Census Bureau datasets.
  • County property databases.
  • Municipal rental registration systems.
  • Tax assessor records.
  • Geographic information systems.
  • Municipal open data portals.
  • Inspection systems.
  • Permit systems.
  • Public housing datasets.
  • Other authorized civic data sources.

Supported data exchange capabilities include:

  • CSV imports.
  • JSON imports.
  • XML imports.
  • GeoJSON imports.
  • Shapefile imports.
  • SQL-based imports.
  • REST API integrations.
  • Bulk data imports.
  • Scheduled data synchronization.
  • Incremental updates.
  • Historical data imports.
  • Import validation.
  • Source attribution.
  • Import error reporting.

Data Provenance

  • Record the originating data source.
  • Preserve source dates.
  • Track data refresh dates.
  • Maintain historical versions where practical.
  • Record transformations.
  • Record reconciliation decisions.
  • Preserve evidence supporting analytical findings.
  • Distinguish source data from derived intelligence.
  • Provide provenance information for public reports.
  • Identify estimated or inferred information.
  • Support source confidence scoring.

API

  • REST API.
  • Documented endpoints.
  • OpenAPI-compatible documentation.
  • Property queries.
  • Parcel queries.
  • Census queries.
  • Rental registration queries.
  • Compliance queries.
  • Occupancy queries.
  • Geographic queries.
  • Historical queries.
  • Analytics queries.
  • Discrepancy queries.
  • Reporting endpoints.
  • Bulk import endpoints.
  • Bulk export endpoints.
  • Authentication controls.
  • Authorization controls.
  • Rate limiting.
  • API audit logging.

Export Capabilities

  • CSV.
  • JSON.
  • GeoJSON.
  • PDF.
  • XLSX.
  • GIS-compatible datasets.
  • Public data extracts.
  • Analytical reports.
  • Geographic reports.
  • Historical reports.
  • Compliance reports.
  • Custom filtered exports.

Privacy Principles

TownIntel is designed to provide civic intelligence without creating an unnecessary repository of personal information.

  • Do not publish tenant names.
  • Do not expose private tenant identities.
  • Prefer aggregated renter and occupancy counts.
  • Minimize personally identifiable information.
  • Separate public information from restricted administrative information.
  • Apply configurable privacy controls.
  • Respect applicable public-record laws.
  • Respect applicable privacy laws.
  • Clearly identify estimated information.
  • Prevent analytical features from becoming tenant surveillance tools.
  • Use only legally available or authorized data.
  • Support responsible disclosure and responsible public reporting.

Specification Branding License (SBL)

Standard

Optional

License & Notice Requirements

TownIntel is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).

By contributing to this project, you agree that your contributions will also be released under this license.

Please note the following:

  • All contributions must comply with the AGPL-3.0+ terms.
  • Under Section 7 of the license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works must preserve attribution to:
    Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
  • TownIntel specificiations are free to use with attribution. A Specification Branding License can be negotiated upon request.
  • The project’s notice.md file tracks attribution requirements and contributor acknowledgments. Any update that adds new contributors or modifies attribution should also update notice.md.
  • When submitting a pull request, ensure that any new files maintain the attribution headers where applicable.
  • Network-deployed versions of this software must also remain fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant, including exposure of source code modifications when applicable under the license.

For full legal details, please refer to the AGPL-3.0+ license and the project’s notice.md file.

Notice – TownIntel

Attribution Requirement: Under Section 7 of the AGPL 3.0+ license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works, including network-deployed versions of this project, must provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.

Contributors

This file tracks contributors and their specific contributions to the project.

  • Roxanne Ardary, roxanneardary.com – March 28, 2026
    Created the repository for TownIntel. Designed the initial system architecture, data model approach, and core concept for a municipal transparency and rental compliance analytics platform.
  • [Add other contributors here] – [Date]
    [Describe contribution in one sentence]

License – TownIntel

This repository is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).

Key Points

  • You are free to use, modify, and distribute the code.
  • All redistributions, forks, and derivative works or network-deployed versions must also be licensed under AGPL-3.0+ and provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com as required under Section 7 of the license.
  • The software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind.

For the full license text, see GNU AGPL-3.0 License.

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