Cullinan wants $200G for Nahant Town Hall rehab

NAHANT-Town Administrator Mark Cullinan said this spring he would ask Town Meeting to appropriate approximately $200,000 from the Community Preservation Fund to renovate Town Hall.?We’re going to have to do some major work on Town Hall,” he said. “We need to do work on the roof, masonry, windows and woodwork.”Cullinan said the roof is leaking in some spots and water is seeping into the building through some of the masonry.?We’ve got some water damage,” he said. “We need to fix these things before the problem gets worse.”The Nahant Town Hall was completed in 1912 and it was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1991. Cullinan said the proposed work would help preserve the historic building and would not compromise the historical significance or integrity of it.Cullinan said the Community Preservation Act generates approximately $250,000 a year and there is currently a balance in the fund that has built up over the last few years.The CPA is a voluntary program that allows communities to tack up to a 3 percent surcharge of the real estate tax levy onto property taxes. Peabody adopted the Act in 2001 and Nahant adopted it in 2004. The money generated by the real estate tax surcharge goes into locally controlled Community Preservation Funds and the money can be spent for historic preservation, open space and affordable housing.Money raised at the local level but the property tax surcharge is matched by the Massachusetts Community Preservation Trust Fund, which is funded by a flat fee charged on real property transactions filed with registries of deeds across the state.If Town Meeting approves the request, Cullinan said he would like to get the project under way during the summer.