James Maroney

Over 400 Investors and Developers Meet to Learn More About
Opportunity Zone Legislation Sen. Maroney Introduced and Championed

HARTFORD, CT – This week over 400 investors, developers, and municipal leaders, met at a conference in New Haven to learn more about the state’s new approach to enhance existing Opportunity Zones (OZ), thanks to legislation state Senator James Maroney (D-Milford) introduced and championed during the 2019 legislative session.

At the conference, a brand new website was unveiled which will enable investors and developers to search available projects with updated information provided by cities, towns, and property owners. The newly created www.ctopportunityzones.com will include shovel-ready projects, transit-oriented development, and pertinent facts about local geography in our state. In an effort to provide recent, up-to-date information to investors and developers, municipalities with OZs will be able to post and promote projects as they become available. Sen. Maroney said these recent developments are incredibly exciting and OZs have the potential to be advantageous to our state’s economy and job market.

“Our state has the opportunity to unlock an estimated $6 trillion in unrealized capital gains through OZs,” said Sen. Maroney. “This is great news for businesses in our state, and specifically West Haven which has OZs. Through the work of the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), and thanks to the ease of this newly created website, we are positioning our state to reap the benefits of OZs, further strengthen our economy and create jobs for Connecticut families.”

OZs are a recently established federal designation created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that incentivizes long-term investment typically in lower-income areas through certain advantages such as payment deferment. They are defined as a “challenged but promising” area. Connecticut has 72 OZs that are located in 27 municipalities.

Under Public Act 19-54, state incentives are layered on top of the federal incentives, making investing in our state’s OZs more attractive and drawing investments from out of Connecticut as well. Additionally, the commissioner of the DECD will conduct a study to ensure our utilization of OZs only improves as time progresses. The Commissioner will also be tasked with hosting at least five events advertising the state’s OZs. DECD Deputy Commissioner David Kooris said the DECD is hard at work attracting investors and developers to our state’s OZs.

​“With support from the Governor and state legislature, we have made Connecticut’s Opportunity Zones even more attractive to investors,” said DECD deputy commissioner Kooris. “Our goal is to unlock the full economic development potential of the zones because of the benefits they can provide our communities, residents and economy as a whole.”

According to The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), OZs are anticipated to generate $100 billion in private capital investment nationwide. HUD also reported nearly 35 million Americans live in the more than 8,700 OZs across the country. Twenty eight legislators co-sponsored Sen. Maroney’s pro-business OZ bill during the legislative session.