The City of Lake Alfred is now “Open for Business” Certified!!!

A coalition of Central Florida business associations, appropriately labeled Open for Business – the Central Florida Coalition for Growth & Prosperity, has been established to address the region’s economic recovery. Focused first on identifying economic and regulatory barriers, this broad-based coalition represents thousands of employers in the eight-county Central Florida service footprint made up of Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole, Sumter and Volusia counties.

This collaborative effort quickly morphed to more than 150 business and government entities working together to identify what we could do as a region to remove barriers to stronger, more predictable business practices. From that research, Open For Business was born—and its first initiative focuses on developing minimum standards of permitting across a geographic footprint that includes seven counties and 86 cities.

What we learned by listening together, as business and government leaders, is that most of our businesses are operating in a minimum of four counties and multiple cities across our region. And while many cities and counties were improving their individual permitting processes, they weren’t aligned across the region.

For instance, prior to Open For Business, a contractor who needed permits for Osceola County, Winter Haven, Orlando and Seminole County had to go to four different places to discover each local government’s permitting standards—and found four different approaches to permitting to try to decipher and process.

What we’re launching is a beginning point to address that complexity. A new website was launched, www.openforbusinesscfl.com, to provide a convenient one-stop spot where local government permitting standards for each participating county and city are available for review and where Open for Business offers an agreement across the region on the minimum standards that are applied in each certified local government.

And this is only the beginning. What has started with the seven counties and 24 cities that are pioneering this initiative will grow as more cities become certified as Open For Business.

POLK COUNTY AGENCIES CERTIFIED “OPEN FOR BUSINESS”

DECEMBER 2012

• Polk County Board of County Commissioners

• City of Auburndale

• City of Haines City

• City of Winter Haven City

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