Category Archives: Letters

Letter to the Editor: An Open Letter to the People of Old Lyme—Take Action to Support the Halls Road Overlay District

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An Open Letter to the People of Old Lyme:

Dear Neighbor, 

Guided change will allow Halls Road to better serve Old Lyme in the 21st century. 

The proposed Halls Road Overlay District allows the private investment needed to create a new, mixed-use town center there, scaled to the needs of Old Lyme: 

  •  Smaller scale housing for down-sizing seniors and young families, 
  •  Browse-able retail street, 
  •  Walkable, bikeable, living neighborhood,
  •  A viable alternative to Halls Road being dominated by highway services – its likely future without HROD.

For the full details on the Halls Road Overlay Zoning, please go to Town of Old Lyme website at  https://www.oldlyme-ct.gov/343/Halls-Road-Improvements-Committee .

Halls Overlay Zoning has been fully reviewed and approved by the Old Lyme Planning Commission, carefully reviewed by the Old Lyme Economic Development Commission and the Old Lyme Zoning Commission has reviewed at several meetings and is now scheduled for its Final Zoning Hearing.

Opponents of Halls Zoning are ‘flooding the zone’ with wild exaggerations and outright lies. We need your help to show such scare tactics cannot work in Old Lyme. 

PLEASE TAKE ACTION

Come and show your support for a better future for Old Lyme. 

  1. SHOW UP at Zoning Hearing.
  2. BRING FRIENDS to show that people care about this.
  3. SPEAK UP at the Hearing.


WHAT: Old Lyme Zoning Hearing

WHEN: Thursday, 6:30pm February 27, 2025

WHERE: Old Lyme Middle School Auditorium

If you cannot attend please share this email with like-minded friends. Also please submit a Support Letter (Either copy, sign and email/mail this Support Letter or use it to write your own.)

Send via email or mail to below:

Postal: (must arrive before February 27)                
Old Lyme Zoning Commission                                                    
52 Lyme Street, Old Lyme Memorial Town Hall
Old Lyme, CT 06371

Eric Knapp <eknapp@oldlyme-ct.gov>
cc: Craig Bonatti <cbonatti@oldlyme-ct.gov>

Thank you for your time and your consideration of this important matter.

Sincerely,

Edie Twining,
Old Lyme.

Editor’s Note: The author is the Halls Road Improvements Committee Chair

Letter to the Editor: Halls Rd. Overlay District Proposal is ‘All About the Money’

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To the Editor:

To begin: This letter is from a person who staunchly opposes the Halls Road Overlay District Proposal.  The specifics by their own admission include:

 “No more than 40 dwelling units shall be built per 1 acre of land“ (HROD [Halls Road Overlay District] 11-18-24) and

According to Bill Sweeney the HROD lawyer salesman from the 1st hearing the developers will increase to 200′ limits on building length and 20,000sf of footprint, (60,000sf for the 3 story buildings), and 3 story parking garage(s) to afford maximum developer desireability (stet). Added to that the need to max out the building sizes to make up for the affordable housing, (which is acceptable), shortfall.  Don’t let ’em fool you it’s all about the money. Once these increased density zoning reg’s are in place, they are very difficult to reverse. Like trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle! Small zoning changes can be small mistakes. Large ones? well, you figure it out.              

What’s the hurry? Even though it’s been 12+ years since the H.R. Improvement committee was tasked with adding sidewalks, lighting, signage and greenery to the area, that plan has morphed to the above. 

Odd how the town has started a $125,000 2 year zoning project to in year 1, review all the reg’s, and in year 2 poll the “entire town” about their wants/needs make resulting changes to town Zoning regulations.  One of the larger, and arguably most contentious areas is Halls Road.

If this overlay is such a great proposal the HROD people should welcome being “dovetailed” in to the “process”.  Change is inevitable but swinging the pendulum from one extreme to the other is wrong.

Sincerely,

Sloan Danenhower,
Old Lyme.

Editor’s Note: The author is an Alternate on the Old Lyme Zoning Commission and has recused himself from voting on the Halls Road project. He is the husband of Old Lyme Selectwoman Jude Read.

Letter to the Editor: Zoning Abyss in Old Lyme Means “No Rules” for Many Properties 

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To the Editor:

There are no rules in Old Lyme for lots of people’s property, in my professional view.  The Zoning Commission needs a wholesale change from electors. 

I just sat in on a zoning meeting for a proposed 11,500 s.f house on Smith Neck Rd, quite large house, and the third, long, drawn out meeting for the same single property (it consumed the entire January zoning meeting, while other matters were pushed a month).  I am not affected at all by the proposed new house, except for twice a month in the summer when I put in for a kayak, it is at the head of Smith Neck.  I completely understand 11,500 s.f. is big, but if it is allowed, that is not a problem – I myself would not want it, but rules are rules, and it is very remote from most all properties, not impeding any views from existing properties.  The Zoning Commission on February 10th denied approval based on an arcane regulation overlay, and gave the unfortunate property owners no guidance whatsoever on how to proceed – the entire Commission said, in essence, “Come back to us with another idea, and we will tell you if we like it.”  That is absolutely not fair or judicious.

Apparently, the proposed house comports with Old Lyme zoning regulations (which, by the way, the same current zoning regulations allow for adult entertainment in C30 zone, insane, but the Zoning Commission must be burdened with other revisions…) but did not comport with some vague, crazy overlay regulations from the state funded Gateway Commission, whose regulations Old Lyme adopted wholesale with no changes (typical of our Zoning Commission), even if with our lovely town might not need some of the generic suggestions.  Most citizens know nothing of this adoption, which process is evocative of the wholesale adoption of generic zoning long ago that created the giant mess we have today in New England, which 1960’s ideas were great for new municipalities with perfectly square one acre lots and defined commercial, industrial, etc. areas not yet even developed in the Midwest or Florida, but created a dystopia like we have in Old Lyme.

In full disclosure, I purchased 99 Halls Road empty lot from Essex Savings Bank when they were considering selling to a group that would have a gas station on the lot.  I have kept it empty as Zoning in its current incarnation considers revisions to regulations.  I bought the property four years ago – I am pretty sure I will be waiting for certainty of regulation for a much while longer after my observations tonight, but at least the Town does not have another gas station that so many people do not want.

I know many, many people have been subjected to Zoning and Zoning Board of Appeals in town.  My suggestion to my fellow residents is that the elected positions need to be filled with qualified, not emotional or political, people who can finally create clear rules for which all may abide – here is what you can do, and here is what you can’t do, without having a six month tribunal experience.  Please talk to your neighbors, this is not a small subject for us here in Old Lyme.  I pray your modest garage project goes smoothly, but I may offer it is likely to be a six month project that should be one month.

Sincerely,

J. David Kelsey,
Old Lyme.

Letter to the Editor: Halls Rd. Overlay District Will Allow Old Lyme to Remain a Small, But Walkable, Vibrant Community

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To the Editor:

The Halls Road Overlay District Plan offers our community the opportunity to develop a small but vibrant town and community center. This area has been in urgent need of long-range planning & development and now we have it – after years of dedicated committee work, multiple surveys, community input sessions, and revisions in response to every conceivable authority.

Today, people are demanding mixed use because it provides convenience, flexibility, and a range of experiences within a smaller neighborhood. To reject this plan is to choose to maintain a 1950s approach to 21st century conditions, retaining a commercial district that is a relic of a time when enthusiasm for the automobile and suburban life put greater distances between people and their town centers.

Without at least the potential for a mixed-use, walkable town center where people can live, work and shop, our little shopping district will continue to limp along without the support that a mixed-use neighborhood provides for retail. There is no pedestrian traffic and no walk-in trade, which is the one remaining attraction for retail investment in the era of Amazon. Instead, new off-ramp convenience stores and franchises will continue to replace local merchants. 

I personally know several people whose professional and personal contribution to this community is unique and highly valued but who choose to live elsewhere because they cannot access the resources that are convenient for their young families and lifestyle here.

For some, the idea of any change to our beloved community is scary, indeed some appear to find it so threatening as to suggest nefarious and corrupt motives on the part of the planners. I urge you not to be influenced by those who harbor these irrational fears and suspicions. Without a plan that at least allows (does not require!) change that will make Old Lyme more attractive to younger families, single households and other individuals who want and need to live within walking distance of essential services, the aging and unattractive traffic strip that has become half of our town center will continue to be an embarrassment and a lost opportunity which will not come again in our lifetimes.

The Halls Road Overlay District plan now presents the Zoning Commission with an opportunity to choose: between the potential for a walkable town center where people can live, work, shop, and enjoy participation in a neighborhood and a community, or a Route 1 extension allowing drivers to speed quickly though and out of town, bordered by half-empty parking lots and decaying strip-malls where the only available new business options are gas stations and convenience stores.

I urge the Zoning Commission to make the right choice.

Sincerely,

Katy Klarnet,
Old Lyme.

Letter to the Editor: Halls Rd. Overlay District is Good for Old Lyme, False Information Harms the Town

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To the Editor:

There’s been a lot of wild talk about Halls Road and the plan to make it a neighborhood in our town center rather than a highway services plaza. The people behind this raft of lies and exaggerations fear change, and preach that by doing nothing, we can prevent change. They are dead wrong. 

Doing nothing will allow Halls Road to become truck stops: the best investment opportunity under current zoning. In the last several years, nearly all of the investor interest in Halls Road has been for new gas stations: three proposals, narrowly fended off. There will be more, and we cannot fend them off forever under the current commercial-only C-30s zoning. 

The best thing we can do is to provide optional zoning that will allow Halls Road to become something better and something that serves multiple, significant needs of the town. 

The Halls Road Overlay District (HROD) proposal does that, providing better returns for investors than they get from gas stations and convenience stores. It also allows the creation of a mixed-use neighborhood with smaller-scale housing and retail that faces Halls Road, not buried back behind empty parking lots. A walkable, mixed-use neighborhood with real neighbors is the best encouragement to businesses that serve the town, not the highway. We need these different types of housing, not just for older folks down-sizing, but also for new families moving in. Our emergency services are all-volunteer. We need younger people to keep them staffed. Smaller-scale housing is crucial to serving their needs.  

Of course, those who hate and fear all change are spreading wild exaggerations and outright lies about HROD. Everything you read in their posts is nonsense. Because they’re not really interested in the truth, they feel free to make things up with crackpot logic and nightmare fantasies. It’s easier than reading the actual HROD document (available online) and doing the hard work to go through the regulations in detail to understand what the real limits on development are. 

If you do the math (and I have done it) the various limitations and requirements (e.g. parking) in the HROD proposal mean that, in 20 or 30 years, there may be as many as 400 apartments or condos in all of Halls Road, along with a shopping street that runs for perhaps a third of its length. The density of dwelling units per acre at full development is within the range already long-established in Old Lyme zoning for multi-family residential anywhere in town. The hysterical numbers and idiotic cartoons are all fantasy. 

Note that my numbers are based only on the HROD regulations, and do not consider all the other constraints on development, such as septic and environmental, which must certainly be considered in any new construction. 

People who came to Old Lyme from towns that were grossly over-developed are particularly prone to think that allowing any development will be the thin end of the wedge. I remind them that we in Old Lyme are firmly against suburban sprawl. That’s why we suggested putting the much-needed smaller-scale housing in a place that is already covered with paving, and where it can help keep our local businesses profitable. Doing so spares the last bits of open space. If you forbid it at Halls Road, you may be sure you’ll find it built out in the countryside, where it will do less good and more harm. 

HROD is good for Old Lyme, and the folks telling lies to terrify their neighbors are harming the town.

Sincerely,

Mark Terwilliger,
Old Lyme.