Opportunity Zones 2.0
Thursday, October 16
On October 16th, 2025, MHP hosted the MN Rural Housing Workgroup and housing partners statewide for a discussion of Opportunity Zones 2.0. What are the opportunities and challenges for Opportunity Zones in Minnesota?
Thank you to Catherine Lyons, Senior Director of Policy and Coalitions at the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) for a fantastic presentation and discussion of Opportunity Zones (OZ) 2.0, including impacts of OZ on housing supply to date and potential community benefits from OZ 2.0. EIG has provided research and analysis of Opportunity Zones, as well as advocating for its permanent inclusion in the tax code.
Opportunity Zones (OZ) were originally enacted in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. OZ became a permanent part of the federal tax code in the OBBBA (One Big Beautiful Bill Act). As described by EIG, “the new OZ benefit structure heavily favors rural over non-rural investment, offering triple the standard step-up in basis benefit (30 percent versus the standard 10 percent) for investments made in a newly-created class of rural qualified opportunity funds, in addition to cutting the “substantial improvement” test in half for investments in rural areas.”
Additional Resources:
- Opportunity Zones 2.0: Where Things Stand After the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
- The Impact of Opportunity Zones on Housing Supply
- What Will the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Mean for Affordable Housing, Communities?
Catherine Lyons, Economic Innovation Group (EIG)
Catherine is Senior Director of Policy and Coalitions at EIG. Prior to joining EIG, she was Southern California Director for FWD.us, a bipartisan advocacy organization focused on immigration reform. Previous to that, she led the housing and community development policy work for the Bay Area Council in the San Francisco Bay Area. She served as an AmeriCorps member in New Orleans after receiving Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Print Journalism and International Relations. She received her Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, during which she interned at the DC Department of Small and Local Business Development and the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget.
