Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Announces New Opportunity Zone Designations
ANNAPOLIS, MD – The Department of Housing and Community Development today announced Maryland’s nomination of 114 census tracts as Opportunity Zones under the federal Opportunity Zone program, which provides tax benefits to incentivize high-impact investments in low-income communities. Counties across Maryland submitted nominations of individual census tracts to the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. The department then worked with local officials, business owners, investors, and community development experts to evaluate the proposed areas and identify where Opportunity Zone designations would have the greatest benefit to their communities. Last month, the department submitted the state’s approved and recommended census tracts to the United States Department of the Treasury. On November 5, the U.S. Treasury released the official 2.0 designations.
“Throughout the Opportunity Zone designation process, we worked directly with local governments and stakeholders to understand their needs and their vision for the communities that could benefit from this new version of the program,” said Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Secretary Jake Day. “We intend to continue strengthening these partnerships and providing support by establishing a dedicated staff position to make sure Opportunity Zones benefit communities. I’m pleased to announce Bert Bossar will be the first to serve as Maryland’s Opportunity Zone Investment Czar.”
Created by federal legislation in 2017, Opportunity Zones are a national, place-based designation that provides tax benefits to qualifying investments made in designated census tracts classified as economically distressed. The Opportunity Zones program incentivizes investment by offering tax benefits for earnings invested into specialized funds that support these communities. Investments under the first round of the program were concentrated in housing, manufacturing, and commercial real estate.
The Opportunity Zones program was revised in 2025 to better target communities in need, offer special enhancements for rural communities, and make the program permanent. As a result of these changes, each state’s governor was required to designate new zones that go into effect on January 1, 2027, and remain until 2037. In drafting its census tract recommendations for this new version of Opportunity Zones, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development gave the greatest weight to local nominations that identified projects or investment strategies in eligible census tracts.
Local jurisdictions were encouraged to be selective with their nominations, prioritizing those with well-presented strategies to drive investment in the targeted area; ongoing or future projects that could benefit from the designation; and land use designations that support development. The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development received 168 census tract nominations from 20 local jurisdictions. Moving forward, these designees will partner with the department, helping to direct developers, investors, and businesses to eligible, local Opportunity Zone investments.
In his role as the department’s Opportunity Zone investment czar, Bossar will work with private, federal, state, and local partners to attract investment and help projects in Opportunity Zones come to fruition. Past program experience has demonstrated that states with an assigned representative to move Opportunity Zone projects along have a better success at securing program investment. Bossar will also coordinate state efforts with the Governor’s Office of Business Advancement, the State Housing Ombudsman, the Permitting Liaison Assistance Team, and other appropriate state organizations and teams to promote investment opportunities and propel projects forward.
“Opportunity Zones are a powerful tool for directing investment toward communities where it can have the greatest impact, but these designations are just the start,” said Bert Bossar, Opportunity Zone Czar at the Department of Housing and Community Development. “Over the next decade, my focus will be on working with every key partner – public and private – to bring capital and community together across the state and bring projects to life.”
Under the Moore-Miller administration, Maryland has taken an all-of-government approach to surge investment in communities that have faced systemic barriers to opportunities. In 2024 Governor Moore created the ENOUGH Initiative – the nation’s first state-led, place-based initiative to invest in communities where poverty is concentrated. Since its creation, over $360 million from state and philanthropy has been deployed to Maryland communities.
Governor Moore also created Just Communities to target state investment in communities that have experienced decades of discriminatory policies like redlining, urban renewal projects, high incarceration rates and disproportionate exposure to environmental and health hazards. The legislation promotes equal opportunity by working to more systemically uplift historically underserved communities.
Visit the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development’s website for more information about Opportunity Zones.
