NAHANT — On Wednesday night, the Board of Selectmen discussed potential Warrant Articles for the 2023 Town Meeting, including conservation restrictions and improvements to the bylaw about feeding wildlife.
“We’ve had some discussions regarding potential conservation restrictions on some of our open spaces to ensure long-term protection of those spaces,” Town Administrator Tony Barletta said. “We’re still going through the process of the details of that.”
The idea behind the restrictions is that the spaces wouldn’t be affected by an “individual town meeting vote that could change the zoning bylaws and potentially put some of those places at risk of development.”
“It would be a simple warrant article identifying those properties, probably by their deed registration, their … map number. But we might want to be a little bit more specific with some surveying and mapping of portions of those properties that would be included,” Barletta said.
Other research ahead of time is something he is looking for as well, including “what the long-term impacts of those conservation restrictions would be on those properties,” he said.
The improvements to the bylaw about feeding wildlife is related to the coyote problem Nahant has been dealing with.
Additionally, the Short Term Rental Committee is working on a bylaw that should be ready by the end of the month, Barletta said.
“The committee signaled to us a few weeks ago that they intend to send us a draft bylaw by the end of the month to be included in the warrant for the coming annual Town Meeting,” Barletta said.
Also at the meeting Wednesday night, Barletta discussed town finances over the past few years and looked into 2023.
“The finances of our community have been solidified through sound business practices. As of July last year, the end of fiscal year 2022, the town maintained healthy balances in all of its funds with an estimated free cash amount of $900,000 in the general fund, $500,000 in the water sewer fund and $30,000 in the rubbish fund,” Barletta said.
In the current fiscal year, Nahant has appropriated $1.5 million for the general fund free cash, $695,000 for water and sewer retained earnings and $60,000 in rubbish retained earnings.
“The town’s tax rate is $9.09 per $1,000 and is again one of the lowest tax rates in the Commonwealth — number 37 out of 339 tax rates that had been approved to date — and we will likely be the lowest tax rate in Essex County,” Barletta said. “It has been our goal to improve the balance of revenues and expenditures without negatively impacting our residents.”
