Business View Magazine | August 2020

210 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2020 Valley. Here, we have the available land; we have regulations that are friendly to growth. We build a lot of homes, but we don’t always build the right kind of homes in the right places. With infill, some of the challenges are making the rent structure work to support the cost of new construction while still being affordable to local residents with lower incomes—it can be done, but it takes creativity. Luckily, though, we don’t have a strong anti-growth framework to contend with. It’s just a matter of making the numbers work and getting it done.” Perez adds, “California, in general, is getting more and more expensive to live, but here in the Valley, it’s still reasonable to live here and have a good lifestyle and be able to afford a house and a car if you need one. And we can also offer a place downtown where you don’t need a car. So, I think we offer what other parts of our state generally look to. People don’t realize it’s here in the Valley, as well.” Clair Whitmer is a strategy and operations expert at FUSE Corps, a national nonprofit that partners with local government to help urban communities thrive. She is also Fresno’s Opportunity Zone Liaison whose mission is to leverage the City’s portfolio of federal Opportunity Zones - each with its own needs and long-range planning strategy - to potential investors and developers. Opportunity Zones were created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, allowing for certain investments in lower income areas to have tax advantages. To be nominated as an Opportunity Zone, a census tract must have a poverty rate of at least 20 percent, or a median family income not exceeding 80 percent of the statewide median family income. Fresno County has 47 such tracts, with about 38 of them in the city proper. “My purpose here, this year, is to get that effort started,” says Whitmer. “It’s really marketing, but it’s also telling Fresno’s story. We have project owners looking for investment and we have a list of investment funds that are looking for Economic Development Director, Lupe Perez