NEW LONDON, CT – Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has co-founded a group called the Opportunity Zone and plans to invest in a self-storage facility in New London, according to Next City. The investment group also has plans to build four apartment complexes in Hackensack, N.J.
Opportunity Zones are federal designations intended to boost economic revitalization while providing tax breaks to rich investors like Christie. A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill that would require the US Treasury Department to collect data and report on these investments, according to Next City.
In a tweet, New York Times reporter Jim Tankersley characterized Christie’s investment in a self-storage facility as “basically the epitome of development activity that carries v little economic benefit for residents of a distressed community.”
Christie isn’t a stranger to controversy. The former governor gained national notoriety during Bridgegate, in which he was accused of shutting down several local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee as retribution against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for not endorsing Christie for reelection in 2013.
