Six months ago, the cities of Princeton and Bluefield applied for the Build West Virginia Tax Credit Program, and just recently, they were approved.
“Build West Virginia is a housing tax incentive program, it’s intended to address some of the constraints that developers are seeing across West Virginia, and to really help lower the cost of building out housing for the middle market,” Meghan Smith, Manager of business development with the WV Department of Economic Development said.
And today to give contractors, investors, banks and or stakeholders a better idea of what this means, an informative session was held.
“We were happy to host community members, insurance agents, bankers that were interested in the Build West Virginia Act. We had a representative from the West Virginia Department of Economic Development here at the city hall today to talk about incentives that were authorized for the Princeton area,” Samuel Lusk, the Princeton Economic Development Director said.
The new designation provides two things for developers in the area, sales tax exemption as well as a tax credit and a potential B&O tax exemption.
With these tax exemptions and opportunities, Princeton and Bluefield hope they will be able to meet the need for housing that they currently face.
“This program is intended to just help housing get developed faster and at a lower cost just because we need to accommodate the needs of the company and get people working and working in West Virginia,” Smith said.