Oak Bluffs voters will decide whether to authorize additional spending on the Niantic Park reconstruction project and repairs for the North Bluff sea wall at a special town meeting next week.

Voters will also weigh in on whether to keep town hall open later and change the rules for creating affordable housing. The meeting begins Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Oak Bluffs School. There are 15 articles on the warrant. Moderator Jesse (Jack) Law 3rd will preside.

The ongoing project to extensively renovate Niantic Park has run short of funds. In an article submitted by the community preservation committee, voters will be asked to authorize an additional $150,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to restore town tennis courts and build sidewalks and parking surfaces that comply with state and federal laws that insure access for people with disabilities. Voters

have already authorized $819,000 for the project. In 2010, the town meeting approved $44,000 for restoration of the historic picnic pavilion in the popular park. In 2012 $25,000 was approved for an engineering study, and the following year, voters agreed to spend $750,000 to redo the park. Of that amount, $350,000 came from CPA funds and $350,000 came in the form of a bond issued by the town. The town community preservation committee has agreed to reimburse the town for the 10-year bond. Original bids for the project exceeded the construction budget by more than $100,000. The parks department eliminated some design features and equipment in order to move forward with the project. A private fund-raising drive fell short of the amount needed to finish the project.

Also part of the request from the community preservation committee is $230,000 for repair of the North Bluff sea wall, and construction of a new boardwalk to connect the harbor with the downtown business district along the shoreline. Selectmen recently voted to accept a bid of $4.98 million from Northern Construction of Weymouth for the project, following a disputed bid process. Most of the project will be funded by state grants, Both requests were approved by the CPC and unanimously recommended by the finance and advisory board.

Business hours for the Oak Bluffs town hall have become a point of dispute in recent months. A bylaw requires the town hall to be open from 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., but the 4:30 closing time was never implemented, according to the executive summary of the article included in the warrant.

Currently, the building closes at 4 p.m. Extending town hall hours would require additional salary expenses for the extra hours of work.

Selectmen feel extending town hall hours is an unnecessary expense and will ask to amend the town bylaw to reflect the current schedule. The finance and advisory board voted 5 to 2 to recommend amending the bylaw to keep the current schedule.

“I don’t think anybody knew, at the time when they negotiated with the union employees, that the time was 4:30,” said chairman Michael Santoro. “To change the hours now they would have to go back and renegotiate.”

According to the warrant, if the bylaw is not amended the additional cost would total $8,670 beginning Jan. 1 to cover half of the current fiscal year. Keeping the town hall open the extra half hour would cost $17,773 in the next fiscal year, and $18,128 in the following fiscal year, for a total of $45,571 over the next two and a half years.

A personnel bylaw change seeks to change the probationary period for newly-hired town employees from three months to six months. Also proposed is a change in eligibility for medical benefits. Currently full-time town employees are eligible for medical benefits immediately upon hiring, and part-time employees who work 20 hours or more are eligible for medical benefits after 60 days of employment. The proposed bylaw change would make medical benefits available to all full-time and part-time employees after a 90-day waiting period.

A proposal designed to free up town-owned land for affordable housing would require a bylaw change.

According to current bylaws, the town resident homesite committee is authorized, with the joint consent of selectmen, to develop or award town-owned land to qualified residents. The homesite committee has not met or taken any action for nearly a decade. The article before town meeting voters would transfer all of the defunct committee’s authority to the Oak Bluffs municipal housing trust.

“It’s just housekeeping,” said selectman Kathy Burton, who is also a member of the affordable housing committee. “We’re not changing anything else in the bylaw.”

She said changing the bylaw will allow the affordable housing committee to restart the process of creating affordable housing.

“There is a lot of land,” she said.