NAHANT — The Board of Selectmen voted Wednesday night to schedule a Special Town Meeting to approve the borrowing of up to $1 million for the Coast Guard housing demolition project.
In 2021, Town Meeting voted to approve the clearing of 12 town-owned properties lining Castle Road and Goddard Drive, known as the Coast Guard housing neighborhood. At the time, the demolition project was budgeted at $300,000.
In October 2022, the Board of Selectmen authorized Town Administrator Tony Barletta to begin the process of evicting Coast Guard housing residents. After putting the project out for bid, Barletta said the lowest bidder, American Environmental Inc., offered to undertake the demolition and hazardous-material removal of nine vacant units for $669,000.
Barletta listed rising inflation and unforeseen costs associated with clearing large subterranean oil tanks as reasons for the jump in cost. The $1 million estimate, he said, was based off an estimated cost of $70,000 to clear each house.
“When we pull up the oil tanks that are currently underground, the underground storage tanks, we’re hoping that we won’t run into any type of remediation needs of the earth around those tanks, but we don’t know that until we pull the tanks up,” Barletta said. “It’s important, we don’t want to go back to Town Meeting for another authorization. We’d like to go to Town Meeting in September and just ask for up to $1 million so that we can continue this project.”
The Town of Nahant purchased the Coast Guard housing land from the federal government in 2004. The town still owes $1.8 million, which is due in 2024, on a loan used to purchase the property, Barletta told The Daily Item in October. Nahant plans to sell the land in order to pay off the loan.
At Wednesday night’s meeting, Nahant resident Kerry Collins asked the board whether some of the land should be set aside for town use. Barletta responded that the Special Town Meeting vote would merely decide whether to authorize borrowing to carry out a project previously approved by Town Meeting, and would not change the project itself.
“I’m sure there’ll be discussion at the Special Town Meeting on the items that you have brought up, but at this point right now, we’re just proceeding on what Town Meeting has authorized us to do,” Barletta said.
Barletta added that in the next few days, the single-article Special Town Meeting warrant will be made publicly available on the town’s website.
Before the board voted unanimously to approve the Special Town Meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 12 at 7 p.m., Collins asked what a rejection of the borrowing would entail for the project’s future.
“We’ll take it one step at a time,” Board of Selectmen Chair Mark Cullinan said.
