Lonato Offers Grants to Revitalize Historic Center and Boost Local Business
Economic incentives are arriving. The Lonato municipal administration is beginning to implement its project to revitalize the historic center. To this end, it has provided grants for those wishing to recover commercial and craft spaces.
These days, the municipal regulation has been finalized, which specifies the parameters under which funding will be disbursed: “This initiative,” explains the Commerce Councillor, Paolo Marcoli, “aims to restore a vibrant city center for the residents of Lonato, with shops providing services and thus also serving a social function for locals. Not everyone, especially the elderly, can move easily, take the car, and go to shopping centers.”
Types of interventions and limits
The municipal contribution concerns interventions such as restoration, remediation, building renovation, extraordinary maintenance of buildings and premises used or intended for commercial or craft purposes within the municipal territory. Therefore, the interventions are not exclusively aimed at the historical area, present in the main town and the hamlets.
Commercial activities with a gross floor area exceeding 250 square meters will be excluded. The Municipality will determine the available quota. The amount of the contribution for each intervention is nevertheless set at 30 percent of the recognized eligible expenditure. This share can increase up to 35 percent for sole proprietors under 35 years of age.
The maximum contribution cap per application will not exceed ten million lire. Furthermore, if the annual budget is insufficient to cover all applications, priority will be given to those interventions that receive the highest score according to the criteria set out in the regulation.
Application procedures and allocation criteria
But who can submit an application? “Individuals, whether natural persons or legal entities, who operate or intend to operate a trade, craft service, or who already run food and beverage services of Type A, provided that the activity is started or resumed within six months of receiving the contribution. Another required document is the income declaration,” explains Councillor Marcoli again.
The municipal contribution will be disbursed only after the issuance of the habitability certificate and following verification by the municipal technical office, which must confirm the proper execution of the works.
It should be emphasized that applications for contributions will be assigned different scores, with the highest for interventions within the perimeter of the historic center.
Position of the traders’ association
Sergio Goglione, head of the Garda district for Ascom, the largest traders’ association in the area, views positively the initiative of the Lonato municipal administration: “The incentive itself can be considered just a starting point. There will then be a need to proceed, as the municipal administration has repeatedly announced, with the arrangement of the decor in the historic center and the new traffic plan.
Additionally, parking needs to be increased, as there are very few spaces, and public lighting should be enhanced, which is insufficient for a town like Lonato.” “It will also be necessary to implement,” Goglione concludes, “new stable promotional initiatives, and not rely on occasional efforts. Mercantico has been a great success, and work should continue along this line. Our association is willing to collaborate and brainstorm new ideas with the Department of Commerce.”
