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Opportunity Zones Documentation

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Opportunity Zones Documentation

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Purpose

Opportunity Zone geospatial boundaries that identify distressed areas in the United States where tax benefits are provided for investors. The LightBox Opportunity Zone API helps you map and analyze areas designated as Opportunity Zones.

OAS 3.1 Specification

Features

Query by Geometry WKT.
Tile and Bounding Box Image request to add to your favorite map control.

Requirements

The LightBox APIs are hosted in the cloud and therefore have no platform requirements. Application requirements include:

A network connection to the LightBox API server
Ability to parse JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) API responses
Secure HTTPS connection
LightBox authentication key
LightBox authentication key

Connecting your account

When your LightBox user account is created, a unique API key is also generated. The API key should be kept secret at all times and can only be used for API requests. The key is required in all API calls.

To retrieve your unique API key:

Log in to the LightBox Developer Portal
Select Apps from the menu bar
In your approved App, note your API key (under Consumer Key)

Performing API requests

All API requests must be made over secure HTTPS connections. Requests made over HTTP will fail.

The base URL of the API server that all API requests will be made to is: https://api.lightboxre.com/ followed by a version number https://api.lightboxre.com/v1

Authentication

LightBox APIs uses a token-based authentication. All requests to the LightBox APIs must be authenticated. The token to be passed via an HTTP header with key 'x-api-key' and value <Your authentication token>

Pass your unique API key in the authorization header of every LightBox API call. LightBox uses this information to authenticate your identify and determine whether you have sufficient permissions to complete the operation. curl -X GET -H ‘x-api-key: (api_key)’ https://api.lightboxre.com/

API Requests

Query by Geometry

Query for opportunity zone records based on a geometry represented as a well-known text (WKT) string.

POINT(-122.40317865990883 45.585729937697515)
LINESTRING (-122.40581795357949 45.58497908445598,-122.40325376176125 45.58627054581282)
POLYGON ((-122.4032877944377 45.58629457984625,-122.40264406427413 45.585697658341736,-122.40184476598769 45.58610686936547,-122.40244558080703 45.586688769812724,-122.4032877944377 45.58629457984625))

GET /census/us/opportunityzones/geometry

Pro Tip:

This endpoint is best used when you have an existing latitude longitude from 3rd party geocoder, or using the value of a map click/identify from a standard map control.

Example requests

curl -X GET -H ‘x-api-key: (api_key)’ https://api.lightboxre.com/v1/census/opportunityzones/us/geometry?wkt=POINT%28-117.852723%2033.63799%29&bufferDistance=50&bufferUnit=m

https://api.lightboxre.com/v1/census/oportunityzones/us/geometry?wkt=POINT%28-117.852723%2033.63799%29&bufferDistance=50&bufferUnit=m

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Usage
countryCode	path	ISO 3166 alpha-2 country code (e.g., 'US' for the United States).	required
wkt	query	The geometry of the location expressed in WKT format.	required
bufferDistance	query	Buffer distance expressed in 'bufferUnits'.	optional
bufferUnit	query	The unit type to apply to the buffer (eg m, km, ft, mi)	optional

Response

Media type: application/json

Structure Tile Endpoint

Use within common map controls to show opportunity zone boundaries as a tile overlay

GET /census/us/opportunityzones/tile/{zoom}/{x}/{y}

Example Requests

curl -X GET -H ‘x-api-key: (api_key)’ https://api.lightboxre.com/v1/census/us/opportunityzones/tile/18/45050/104888

https://api.lightboxre.com/v1/census/us/opportunityzones/tile/18/45050/104888

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Usage
zoom	path	Tile zoom level, which can be a minimum of '13' and a maximum or '21.'	required
x	path	Tile column.	required
y	path	Tile row.	required

Response

Media type: image/png

Structure Tile Bounding Box Endpoint

Use within common map controls to show opportunity zone boundaries as a bounding box overlay

GET /census/us/opportunityzones/tile

Example Requests

curl -X GET -H ‘x-api-key: (api_key)’ https://api.lightboxre.com/v1/census/us/opportunityzones/tile?bbox=-83.0434660625,40.0198659375,-83.04070793749999,40.0226240625&width=600&height=600

https://api.lightboxre.com/v1/census/us/opportunityzones/tile?bbox=-83.0434660625,40.0198659375,-83.04070793749999,40.0226240625&width=600&height=600

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Usage
bbox	path	A bounding box expressed in the NAD83 projected coordinate system.	required
width	path	Width of the result image	required
height	path	Height of the result image	required

Response

Media type: image/png

API Response

For each endpoint other then the tile requests the response will stay consistent.

{
  "$ref": "string",
  "$metadata": {
    "geogcs": {
      "epsg": "4326"
    },
    "recordSet": {
      "totalRecords": 99,
      "bbox": {
        "xMax": -105.250409,
        "xMin": -105.251916,
        "yMax": 40.023629,
        "yMin": 40.022576
      }
    }
  },
  "opportunityZones": [
    {
      "$ref": "string",
      "id": "string",
      "location": {
        "countryCode": "US",
        "representativePoint": {
          "longitude": 0,
          "latitude": 0,
          "geometry": {
            "wkt": "string"
          }
        },
        "geometry": {
          "wkt": "string"
        }
      },
      "fips": "06107",
      "tractCode": "004300",
      "geoid": "06107004300",
      "name": "string",
      "featureClass": "string",
      "functionalStatus": "string",
      "type": "Low-Income Community",
      "dataSource": "2011-2015"
    }
  ]
}

Field Dictionary

Field	Type	Description
location.countryCode	string	ISO 3166 alpha-2 country code (e.g., 'US' for the United States).
fips		The five-digit FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) code for the county that the property is located within (e.g., '06059').
tractCode	string	The current opportunity zone code.
geoid	string	Census tract identifier; a concatenation of the current state FIPS code, county FIPS code, and census tract code.
name	string	Current census tract name. This is the census tract code converted to an integer or integer plus 2-character decimal if the last two characters of the code are not both zeros.
featureClass	string	MAF/TIGER feature class code.
functionalStatus	string	Current functional status.
type	string	Opportunity zone type.
dataSource	string	American Community Survey (ACS) data source.

HTTP Error Codes

HTTP Response status codes along with a brief summary of their commonly accepted usage. These status codes are returned by LightBox APIs for each request:

200	The request succeeded.
201	The object was created successfully
202	Accepted, no content
204	Successful, no content
204	The server has successfully fulfilled the request and that there is no additional content to send in the response payload body. Typically returned on a DELETE
400	One or more of the request parameters were invalid.
401	The client must authenticate itself to get the requested response. *Note:* This could also be due to your trial key has expired.
404	The server cannot find the requested resource. This can also mean that the endpoint is valid but the resource itself does not exist.
429	Too many requests were made in a short period of time, or you have exceeded your request-lot pool.
500	The server has encountered an error it does not know how to handle.
503	Service Unavailable.

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What's Next

Opportunity Zones Release Notes

Table of contents

Purpose
API Requests
API Response
Field Dictionary
HTTP Error Codes