As part of the Acadiana Opportunity Zone Initiative, the Church Point Stakeholder meeting was held on Thursday, July 11th at the Home Bank Annex in Church Point. The session was hosted by the Acadia Parish Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Church Point and was led by the CEO and staff of the Acadiana Planning Commission and One Acadiana.
The Town of Church Point and Amy S. Thibodeaux, President and CEO of the Acadia Chamber, invited local financial and healthcare professionals, real estate brokers, and other individual investors who would benefit from this program.
“The purpose of today’s meeting is to discuss the Church Point’s Designated Opportunity Zone and show our community stakeholders the next steps the community can explore to maximize the positive impacts of the program,” says Thibodeaux.
There are 20 Opportunity Zones in Acadiana. The Opportunity Zones incentive is a new community investment tool established by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, 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 an OZ designated tract, encouraging long-term investments in low-income urban and rural communities nationwide
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 regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) which was adopted in 2017 as part of APC’s designation by the U.S. 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 learn more about Acadiana Opportunity Zone & to see our prospectus, visit InvestAcadiana.org.
