David Butler, co-CEO at Argosy Real Estate Partners explains how the new rules reshape the program.
How will the new eligibility rules reshape the qualified opportunity zone (QOZ) map?
QOZ 2.0 lowers the median family income threshold for qualifying tracts from 80 percent to 70 percent of the statewide or metro-area median income and eliminates the contiguous-tract rule allowing adjacent tracts to qualify without independently meeting the income test. These changes are projected to shrink eligible census tracts by roughly 20 percent to 25 percent.
The most significant addition is a new rural designation. The legislation reserves at least 33 percent of each state’s QOZ designations for rural areas, or a share equal to the state’s rural population (whichever is greater). A rural area is defined as any census tract located entirely outside of a city or town with a population of more than 50,000, and is not part of an urbanized area contigu
