{"id":2445255,"date":"2019-06-12T21:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T03:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/carson-touts-opportunity-zones-and-modular-homes\/"},"modified":"2019-06-12T21:36:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T03:36:00","slug":"carson-touts-opportunity-zones-and-modular-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/carson-touts-opportunity-zones-and-modular-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"Carson touts \u2018opportunity zones\u2019 and modular homes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson testifies at a House Financial Services Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in May.<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

VAIL \u2014 Ben Carson\u2019s experience as a surgeon taught him that half measures usually aren\u2019t effective. That\u2019s why he\u2019s seeking whole solutions.<\/p>\n

Carson, the current secretary of the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development, spoke Wednesday to the Western Governors Association meeting at Vail\u2019s Hotel Talisa. Carson\u2019s talk covered a lot of areas, but he returned to an overriding theme of cooperation and collaboration between federal, state and local governments as well as the private sector.<\/p>\n

Carson talked about the success of \u201copportunity zones\u201d created in the federal tax-reform package of 2017. The town of Avon is currently the only federally approved zone in Eagle County.<\/p>\n

The opportunity zone designation allows private investors to receive tax breaks for investing in those zones.<\/p>\n

Carson said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has estimated that the tax incentives could allow as much as $100 billion in private capital to flow into all the nation\u2019s opportunity zones.<\/p>\n

That investment can include funding for new businesses, housing and other uses. Carson said that the Zillow.com website estimates that sales in opportunity zones have accelerated by 20% since the program was created.<\/p>\n

Carson also touted the advantages of manufactured housing as a way to build a lot of homes quickly and at less expense than site-built homes. That sector is the country\u2019s largest source of unsubsidized housing, Carson said.<\/p>\n

Carson told the group that manufactured housing doesn\u2019t necessarily mean single- or double-wide mobile homes. Eagle County is home to several different levels of manufactured homes, from mobile homes to starter homes to the Chamonix townhome neighborhood in Vail.<\/p>\n

Manufactured homes can provide an effective way to provide home ownership, he added, with a couple of caveats.<\/p>\n

Carson stressed the need for \u201cresponsible\u201d home ownership, citing the cost to families from the collapse of the housing bubble in the previous decade.<\/p>\n

At the lower end of the market, Carson said it\u2019s essential to provide both help with purchasing and support for buyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to think holistically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s possible, with a combination of technology, cooperation and understanding of the need to revise local building codes that might currently forbid building homes for lower income families.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all possible, he said, but it takes vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can see the invisible, you can achieve the impossible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vail Daily Business Editor Scott Miller can be reached at smiller@vaildaily.com<\/a> or 970-748-2930.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson testifies at a House Financial Services Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in May.AP | AP VAIL \u2014 Ben Carson\u2019s experience as a surgeon taught him that half measures usually aren\u2019t effective. That\u2019s why he\u2019s seeking whole solutions. Carson, the current secretary of the U.S. Department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 15:14:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}