PITTSVILLE, Md.- The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development announced two towns in Washington County and one town in Wicomico County that have been named Maryland's newest Sustainable Communities. The Sustainable Communities program offers local governments loans, grants and tax credits that can support brick and mortar community projects, small business development, job creation and tourism. Pittsville town manager Joseph Mangini says the town already has some projects in mind.
"The grants you can pretty much use for, there's a wide ranging uses that you can do. But I want Pittsville to kind of take baby steps. I think what we would like to do is those buildings that kind of need a face lift and need help, we kind of want to be able to do those," said Mangini. "We want to turn the town center like how it used to be in old time American where you had stored on the bottom people live on the top... it's going to be an exciting time for us," said Mangini.
Rebecca Smith owns Barefoot Willy's Tees and says support for small businesses is needed.
"That will help other small businesses to be here when we were looking to be here, commercial property is at a minimum we waited a few years for this place um and hopefully that will open that up so people won't have that same issue," said Smith. "People don't wanna pay taxes and stuff but it you have to put money into something to get money out of it."
With the addition of Boonsboro, Pittsville, and Smithsburg, the State of Maryland has designated 126 Sustainable Communities across Maryland since the creation of the program in 2010.
