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Home My WebLink About06-19-26 Public Comment - S. Boyd - Opportunity Zones and consent agendaFrom:Scott and Frances Boyd To:Bozeman Public Comment Subject:[EXTERNAL]Opportunity Zones and consent agenda Date:Friday, June 19, 2026 6:05:02 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Mayor and City Commissioners, I am writing to respectfully request that the Commission remove the proposed Opportunity Zone applications for Gallatin County Census Tracts from the consent agenda and schedule them for full public deliberation before authorizing the City Manager to sign. I want to be clear at the outset: I share the goal of expanding housing affordability and economic opportunity in Bozeman. The city faces a genuine affordable housing problem, and every legitimate tool should be on the table. My concern is not with the goal, but with whether this particular tool, applied in this particular context, willactually serve the community or primarily serve investors at the community's expense. Economic development tools exist to advance the public interest. When the evidencesuggests a tool is more likely to enrich private capital than to deliver the community benefits it promises, the burden of proof should be on those proposing its use, not on residents asking questions. That burden has not been met here. THE ADDITIONALITY PROBLEM IS DISQUALIFYING The application cites the Bozeman Square Project, a mixed-use redevelopment of the former K-Mart site, as one of only two near-term pipeline projects demonstrating OZinvestment readiness. But according to KBZK News (October 29, 2025), groundbreaking for Phase I of Bozeman Square is already scheduled for 2026. The project already has a named development team, a signed engineering firm, active anchor tenant leasing underway through an exclusive retail agent, and coordinationcompleted with city, county, and state officials. Phase I alone will include 200 affordable housing units, more than the OZ application itself envisions, committed entirely without any Opportunity Zone incentive. This is not a project that needs a tax incentive to attract investment. It has already attracted investment. Citing it as evidence of OZ readiness does not strengthen this application; it fatally undermines it. The entire theory of the Opportunity Zone program is that tax incentives unlock investment that would not otherwise occur. If Bozeman'smost prominent pipeline project is breaking ground this year without the incentive, the Commission should ask plainly: what exactly is this designation unlocking that the market is not already delivering? Designating Tract 6 as an Opportunity Zone at this point would not catalyze the Bozeman Square development. It would simply hand asubstantial federal tax benefit to investors in a project that was always going to happen. THE APPLICATION'S COMMITMENTS ARE ENTIRELY UNENFORCEABLE A careful reading of the application reveals that every housing and affordability commitment is expressed in the conditional tense. Investment "should" focus on workforce housing. Development "should" support a diverse workforce. Projects "should" create family-supporting wages. There is not a single mandate, deed restriction, income limit, affordability covenant, or clawback provision anywhere in thedocument. The gap between what this application says it wants and what it actually requires of investors is total. Approving it as written would hand a substantial federal tax benefit to private capital with no enforceable obligation to produce a single affordable unit, a single local job, or any other community benefit whatsoever. THE EVIDENCE ON OPPORTUNITY ZONES IS DEEPLY CONCERNING This is not a hypothetical risk. A substantial and growing body of independentresearch documents the Opportunity Zone program's failure to deliver on its community development promises. The Center for American Progress found that the average household income ofOpportunity Zone investors placed them in the top 1% of the income distribution, at $4.8 million in 2019, and concluded that OZ tax breaks are "costly and poorly targeted" and "do little to create jobs or improve conditions in poor communities." (americanprogress.org, June 2022) Arnold Ventures, after reviewing nearly eight years of program data, concluded that OZ investments "primarily enriched wealthy investors while doing little to help the people it was designed to serve," and that the program "subsidized investments thatwould likely have happened anyway." (arnoldventures.org, September 2025) The National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that $89 billion flowed through Opportunity Zone funds between 2019 and 2022, with the largest benefits flowing tothose who need them least and "little to no measurable community impact for those most in need." (ncrc.org, October 2025) Research published in Cityscape found that gentrifying OZ-designated tracts aresignificantly more likely to receive investment than non-gentrifying ones, and that increased gentrification within OZ tracts leads to increased displacement of lower- income residents. (National Low Income Housing Coalition) The Urban Institute found that the vast majority of OZ capital flowed into real estate rather than operating businesses, and that new OZ housing units were more likely to be market-rate than those in comparable non-designated tracts, indicating a limited correlation between OZ designation and affordable housing production. (urban.org) Arnold Ventures further found that while OZ investments created some jobs, only about 5% of workers in any given OZ tract actually lived there, meaning the employment benefits flowed primarily to commuters from other, often higher-income neighborhoods. Bozeman's growth trajectory makes these risks acute. The OZ program was designed for distressed communities struggling to attract any investment. Tract 6 is an infill area in one of Montana's fastest-growing cities, already targeted by multiple urban renewal plans, already served by TIF districts, and already attracting major private development without any additional incentive. In this context, OZ designation is not likely to unlock new community-serving investment. It is likely to accelerate land valueappreciation, increase gentrification pressure, and deliver tax windfalls to investors, which is precisely the outcome the research predicts for already-appreciating markets. WHAT THE COMMISSION SHOULD REQUIRE BEFORE ANY VOTE The Commission should not authorize this application without public answers to the following questions: - Given that Bozeman Square is already breaking ground in 2026 with 200 affordable units committed and anchor tenant leasing underway without any OZ designation, on what specific basis does staff contend that this designation is necessary or additive? - What binding affordability mechanisms, including deed restrictions, income covenants, LIHTC pairings, and clawback provisions, will the city attach to OZ investment in Tract 6, and why are none proposed in the current application? - What independent analysis has been conducted of the gentrification and displacement risk to existing residents and businesses in Tract 6? - Has the community, particularly the workforce residents the application invokes, been consulted about these tradeoffs? Bozeman should use every available tool to expand housing supply and affordability.But tools should be deployed when they serve the community, not when they primarily serve investors. An Opportunity Zone designation with no affordability mandates, applied to a market already attracting the very investment it is supposed to incentivize, is not a housing strategy. It is an unguarded subsidy, and one that theweight of evidence suggests will raise prices, accelerate gentrification, and deliver its primary benefits to wealthy investors rather than to the teachers, healthcare workers, tradespeople, and service workers this application claims to serve. I respectfully urge the Commission to: 1. Remove this item from the consent agenda; 2. Schedule a public hearing to allow meaningful community input; 3. Direct staff to provide a rigorous, independent analysis of additionality, affordabilitysafeguards, and gentrification risk, including a specific accounting of the Bozeman Square Project's financing, timeline, and affordable unit commitments, before any final vote. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to making Bozeman a community where working people can afford to live. Respectfully, Scott Boyd Bozeman