5 Strategies to Prepare Opportunity Zones for Development
September 4, 2018
The waiting is painful. The U.S. Treasury Department has certified over 8700 census tracts across the United States as Opportunity Zones. Through a comprehensive public engagement process the nation’s Governors recommended eligible census tracts and the Treasury all according to the required statutory deadline certified the Opportunity Zone census tracts across the U.S. that can qualify for a substantial federal capital gains deferral.
According to the Economic Innovation Group, the certified Opportunity Zones have an average poverty rate of nearly 31 percent, well above the 20 percent eligibility threshold, and an average median family income of only 59 percent of its area median, compared to the 80 percent eligibility threshold, but these zones may well be positioned to succeed economically as they contain 24 M jobs and 1.6 M places of business and three-quarters of zones are located in zip codes that experienced at least some level of post-recession employment growth from 2011 to 2015.
