U.S. Housing Secretary Turner visits Nebraska, calls Omaha ‘Highlander’ grounds model

OMAHA — The nation’s top housing official was in Omaha Thursday, promoting Trump administration strategies to increase homeownership by cutting “red tape” for builders and rebuilding troubled neighborhoods via “opportunity zone” incentives.

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner’s visit to Nebraska’s most populous city focused on a tour of a revitalized North Omaha neighborhood once home to an oft-violent public housing project.

He called the newer and still-growing Highlander mixed-use redevelopment area — which officials say spans nearly 40 acres and contains investment of roughly $200 million — a model of public and private investment he’ll tout elsewhere across the country.

“From here I will be a voice piece and share with other cities and states what’s been done,” Turner said, pointing out the tract’s entrepreneurial and housing elements. “This is new life in this community … people now living here whose lives have been changed.”

The Highlander neighborhood shifts began prior to the initial creation of opportunity zones under Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but at least one of its housing phases benefited from the expiring law, said Sharlon Rodgers, CEO of Seventy Five North Revitalization, which manages the campus. The redevelopment was fueled by a $25 million HUD Choice Neighborhoods grant.

Now, under Trump’s new tax law passed in July, the opportunity zone program that offers tax breaks to encourage private development is permanently extended. Cities, including Omaha, recently have been submitting candidates to state leaders who will determine the new lineup of designated opportunity zone census tracts.

Under the program, investors can roll capital gains into a qualified opportunity zone fund and defer or reduce their existing capital gains taxes. If the investment is held for at least a decade, capital appreciation generated by the investment becomes tax-free.

‘Unleash’ homebuilding

Rodgers and others say the incentive could potentially boost further growth of the Highlander campus and help other distressed neighborhoods in the state. Omaha officials said, for example, the South Omaha area in which nonprofit Canopy South is rebuilding the site of yet another former public housing project had not been an opportunity zone, but is now being considered.

Turner was joined at the Highlander by an entourage that included Gov. Jim Pillen and Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr. An aide to the housing secretary said Turner, a former professional football player, was invited to Nebraska by Pillen, who played defensive back for the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the mid-1970s.

The governor later accompanied Turner to Fremont for a scheduled “listening session” on opportunity zones and workforce housing. 

Pillen  put a focus on “lifting up people out of poverty and into the American dream of home ownership.”

He said state and federal officials hope to address that in part by removing what Pillen sees as regulatory barriers to affordable home construction. 

“Across the state we’re going to work hard to make sure we get government out of people’s hair, make sure builders can build,” he said, adding, for example, he favors less expensive plastic pipes over copper pipes and “onerous” electrical codes. “We’re gonna clean it up.”

Turner also spoke about a new HUD report: State and Local Best Practices for Home Construction, which he expects will “unleash” single-family homebuilding and development by reducing costs of rules he said can “cripple” development.

He said other recent Trump executive orders slash “red tape” to lower costs of building homes — though labor unions and safety advocates often resist such changes.

Personal vantage point

Pillen, during his remarks about the Highlander, said that what was taking place in Omaha was “off the charts.”

Ewing spoke from a personal vantage point, having spent some of his childhood in the former housing project and later patrolling the area as an Omaha police officer. He recalled one stint when there were 30 shootings in 31 days at the former Pleasantview housing area.

The mayor said his administration hopes to work closely with various nonprofits and other organizations, as well as state and federal officials, to push opportunity zone incentives as part of a local mission to increase affordable housing and related development. 

Ewing said the city’s affordable housing task force is looking at various building and zoning codes and options to help reduce expenses and increase housing stock, and also is promoting different styles of homes that can provide affordable options.