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Beltrami County asked to rank three census tracts for Opportunity Zone 2.0
Summary
A presenter asked the county board to rank three eligible census tracts — an airport/tech‑park area, a rail‑corridor/downtown tract and a core‑of‑town tract — for the governor’s Opportunity Zone 2.0 recommendations, noting county‑owned parcels and developable sites in each area.
A presenter briefed the Beltrami County Board on the Opportunity Zone 2.0 process and asked commissioners to rank three eligible census tracts in and around Bemidji for the governor’s submission to the federal program.
The presenter said the revised program narrows eligible tracts to 25% and requires governors to submit ranked recommendations; counties are expected to identify and rank their own eligible census tracts. He described three candidate tracts: an airport/tech‑park area with developable parcels on the north and west edges and county‑owned land west of the middle school along Highway 2; a downtown/rail‑corridor tract south of Third Street that includes county lands south of Target and several underused parcels; and a core‑of‑town tract north of Third Street that includes a vacant former high‑school site owned by a private party.
Commissioners pressed for clarity on which parcels are county‑owned and where development potential is greatest. One commissioner asked the board to postpone final ranking until a later meeting; another warned against choosing sites simply because the county owns them. The presenter said the regional Human Services/HRDC organization will help counties submit rankings to avoid counterproductive county‑vs‑county competition.
The board did not take a final vote during the presentation; staff asked the board to place a ranking decision on a future county‑board agenda so the county can meet the governor’s request to submit ranked tract recommendations.
