The Old Lyme Zoning Commission meets at 7:30 p.m. this evening in Memorial Town Hall. One item on the agenda is likely to draw a larger than usual audience and that is the application to convert the existing convenience store at the gas station on Halls Rd. into a Dunkin’ Donuts occupying the current space and extending into the, “… space currently occupied by the three automobile repair bays” with, “… also a food take-out use.”
Last month’s meeting was cancelled due to the blizzard, which had just been experienced, but at the January meeting when the proposal was first introduced, around 17 residents attended the meeting to object to the plan. Representatives from Dunkin’ Donuts gave data and a traffic analysis in support of the proposal.
The hearing will be continued this evening as the first item on the agenda and then likely closed to the public. The Commission will then probably discuss the matter based on all the information and opinions that have been presented.
We have received the op-ed printed below from Michael Perks, a member of the newly formed Mentoring Corps for Community Development (MCCD), which is objecting the Dunkin’ Donuts plan. Some of the projects that MCCD is currently involved with, according to Perks, are, “the Lyme-Old Lyme High School as a resource for student career mentoring, assisting local residents affected by Hurricane Sandy, working with a proposed theatrical company start-up and reviewing a proposed long term project to transform Halls Road into “The Avenue to the Arts” through landscaping, lighting, walkways etc.”
Op-Ed by Michael Perks, a member of MCCCD
Old Lyme has been my home for the last 47 years, we have our third generation in the school system. I want my great grandchildren to benifit from Old Lyme as I have. It is small, friendly, family, the Mom & Pop stores has substained us this far, keeping with the small town theme,.We don’t need a Duncan Donuts, the added traffic, the elements that such a store will bring to our beautiful town. I am not saying anything that hasn’t already been said. Please consider long and hard what you would do to our town by permitting the changes that want to be made to this business from outsiders that could care less about our town. Thank you for all considerations.
To offer this location up for Dunkin Donuts is an affront to the “Main St” entrepreneurs who have invested their time, energy and life savings into their enterprises. How many coffee and doughnut shops do we need within a few hundred yards of each other? By saying yes to DD (a fine corporation in and of itself), our elected politicians would be saying “goodbye, thanks for nothing” to Andy’s and Coffee Works who cannot compete economically with that behemoth. Forget their hard work, their investment, what they have given to the community. Lets put a faceless, gaudy chain store up because that’s the way to go. Shame on any Old Lyme official who gives this matter more than 30 seconds of thought before voting no.
We need a Dunkin’ Donuts in Old Lyme as much as historic Mystic Village needs a WalMart !
There are appropriate locations for virtually any respectable business….. however all communities have a right and duty to maintain their own “identity” or image. It is the responsibility of the community citizenry to maintain it. If we sacrifice our desire to preserve the rural “village” image of Old Lyme, then we have no right to complain that within a few short years it merely resembles a more “urban” character such as that of Old Saybrook.
There is nothing wrong with either environment, but it is the unique qualities of each that gives our overall area the interest of diversity and “color”. It is that diversity that enhances the personality of all our area’s communities.