A meeting was held today to offer information about Opportunity Zones.
Today’s forum was a joint effort of the City of Opelousas, St. Landry Parish Government, St. Landry Economic Development and Acadiana Planning Commission.
The city worked to pull together the people who have a stake in the revitalization of downtown Opelousas, said Rachel Godeaux, director of community and economic development for the APC.
“Today we started those critical conversations: What are the types of projects you want to see in your area? How do you start an Opportunity Zone fund? How do you invest in the areas that so need it, in order to revitalize our downtown centers to help spur economic development throughout our region?” she said.
There are 20 opportunity zones in Acadiana. They were created by Gov. John Bel Edwards in April 2018, using the federal “Investing in Opportunity Act”, a $7.7 billion bipartisan bill aimed at strengthening economically depressed areas across the United States. Opportunity zones offer deferred capital gains taxes and significant tax incentives to those who invest in low-income communities.
In selecting Acadiana’s zones, the focus was on census tracts that were centered along the downtown areas of the region’s municipalities to promote downtown revitalization. Area downtown revitalization is also a critical goal of the Acadiana region’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy which was adopted in 2017 as part of APC’s designation by the Economic Development Administration.
Opportunity zones for Acadiana include the following areas:
- Lafayette Census Tract 0001, 0008, 0007, 0009, 0010, 0011, 0022 (including Downtown, University Corridor, UL main campus, Oil Center and Evangeline Thruway)
- Abbeville Census Tract 9507
- Breaux Bridge Census Tract 0205.01
- Church Point, Census Tract 9601
- Eunice Census Tract 9611
- New Iberia Census Tracts 0305, 0309, 0310, 0311
- Opelousas Census Tracts 9613, 9614, 9616
- Ville Platte, Census Tract 9505, 9506
To see the map of opportunity zones across the state, visit. https://www.opportunitylouisiana.com/business-incentives/opportunity-zones.
Here are the details and maps of the zones in Acadiana:
