NAHANT — Residents planning to attend the Special Town Meeting Sept. 12 have until Sept. 1 to register to vote.
Last month, the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to approve the single-article Special Town Meeting warrant. At the meeting, residents will decide whether to authorize the town’s borrowing of $1 million to clear 12 town-owned houses lining Castle Road and Goddard Drive, also known as the Coast Guard housing neighborhood.
In 2021, Town Meeting voted to approve the Coast Guard housing’s demolition. At the time, the demolition project was budgeted at $300,000. Since then, Town Administrator Tony Barletta said cost-of-living increases and unforeseen demolition costs have nearly doubled that estimate.
In October 2022, the Board of Selectmen authorized 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 in July. “It’s important, we don’t want to go back to Town Meeting for another authorization.”
The town 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.
Should voters reject the additional borrowing in September, the next steps for the Coast Guard housing demolition project are uncertain.
“We’ll take it one step at a time,” Board of Selectmen Chair Mark Cullinan said last month.
Residents can register to vote either online at the website of the secretary of the Commonwealth’s office until 8 p.m. or in person at the town clerk’s office until 5 p.m..
