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.
Mr. Danenhower is still wildly exaggerating what is allowed under HROD, going on about “40 units/acre.” I explained why that is nonsense here:
https://lymeline.com/2025/02/a-view-from-my-porch-a-short-history-of-the-halls-road-overlay-district-hrod-why-it-is-a-worthy-project/#comment-813893
All zoning, everywhere, all the time is necessarily “about the money.” Why? Because nothing gets built (or even torn down) without somebody (usually many somebodies) making a living at it. Hearing a Republican demonize a person making a living or a business making a profit just makes my head spin.
No business will build anything at a loss. It’s that simple. If the town were really declaring “open season” for developers, they’d allow mutli-family on Halls Road without the many, carefully constructed restrictions and requirements of HROD. Then perhaps we might have something akin to the nightmare fantasies the opponents of HROD have been spinning. But HROD does NOT allow that.
Speaking of money, even the modest amount of new housing and retail that might *actually* be built under HROD would increase the town’s revenues. Delay just means waiting longer for that tax relief.
The two-year project to clean up the zoning regulations is just that: a mission to remove redundancies and outdated regs, and to address cases where the same thing is regulated in different bits of the zoning code. It is NOT an effort to change the uses allowed or any major thing like that. Since Mr. Danenhower is an Alternate on the Zoning Commission, he knows that adding something like HROD during this clean-up exercise is not what the Commission plans to do. The suggestion to wait makes no sense, especially since the HROD regulations, if approved, will be among the most up-to-date parts of zoning.
We need smaller-scale housing, and retail that serves Old Lyme rather than Exit 70. HROD is a measured and controlled approach to zoning that addresses these needs, while allowing the creation of a new mixed-use neighborhood Old Lyme can be proud of.