Southern Putnam County area selected in state initiative

CLOVERDALE — Putnam County has been named one of six communities statewide to be part of the Rural Opportunity Zone Initiative (ROZI), an effort that provides technical assistance and capacity-building support to rural areas.

The Indiana Office of Rural Community and Rural Affairs, in partnership with the Purdue Center for Regional Development, Purdue Extension Community Development and Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) announced Thursday that Putnam County, Connersville, Delphi, Princeton, Rush County and Starke County were all among the second round of pilot communities in the program.

Centered mainly on the Cloverdale area, the Putnam Opportunity Zone is actually quite large, covering the central and eastern parts of southern Putnam County. (See map).

With what seems to be the continued outward expansion of the “Greater Indianapolis” area, officials and business leaders in Putnam County hope to be the next community to capitalize.

“With the development at I-70 and State Road 39, we think we’re going to be the next place to hit and we want to be ready for that,” Greencastle/Putnam County Development Center Director Clary said.

The area is one of four in West Central Indiana selected as Opportunity Zones — there are two in Vigo County and one in Vermillion — but it is the only one in the region to have been selected in either round of the pilot program.

The Development Center applied for the award, with a team that includes Clary, Cloverdale Town Manager Jason Hartman and District 3 County Commissioner Tom Helmer.

Clary said more community members will be selected for the team as the process moves forward.

The purpose of ROZI is to build the capacity of Opportunity Zones located in rural Indiana to attract private, public and/or philanthropic sector investments that support locally-driven priorities. This program is funded by a Rural Business Development Grant from the Indiana U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

In 2018, Gov. Eric Holcomb nominated 156 Indiana Opportunity Zones with the guidance of an advisory group, with statewide representation. OCRA completed an initial assessment of the selected zones and identified 46 sites as rural opportunity zones. Last year, the PCRD and OCRA completed the first round of the initiative, which included the following counties: Daviess, DeKalb, Knox, Newton and Switzerland.

“With today’s announcement, more rural communities will have the necessary materials to attract capital to their designated areas,” Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch said. “With our state’s housing agency now involved in the initiative, we are addressing a critically important piece of economic development and talent attraction on an individual economic level.”

The goal of the Opportunity Zone Initiative is to encourage long-term private capital investment in low-income urban and rural communities. The program offers long-term federal tax deferral on capital gains for investments in designated zones, with additional tax exclusion from new capital gains achieved from those investments. For more information visit, in.gov/ocra/additional-resources/opportunity-zones/.