Op-Ed: HROD Benefits Community, Promotes Sustainable Future for Old Lyme—Helps Prevent Real Threats to OL’s Character, Future

Editor’s Note: This op-ed was sent to us by Old Lyme resident Elaine Stiles.

As an Old Lyme resident who cares deeply about sustainable growth and housing access, I am writing to express strong support for the proposed Halls Road Overlay District (HROD) and the development and planning principles that inform it. Old Lyme is a small town, but it is located near two interstate highways, a rail corridor that may soon be significantly expanded, and major employers that draw national and international work forces to the region.

Growth will continue to come to our community, and planning for the future is imperative. I support the Halls Road Overlay District because it offers controls and guidance for future development that will:

• Offer community residents (present and future) much-needed housing alternatives to single-family detached units. Young single people, young households and families, and elders who want to downsize have few to no rental or ownership options in Old Lyme other than single-family, detached housing and its associated tax burden, maintenance burdens, and isolated settings. Thoughtfully arranged apartment or condominium units and walkable mixed-use development supports aging in place, attracts creative capital and future residents, and provides spaces for diverse household sizes and stages.

• Reuse existing developed land to meet community housing needs. In the wake of a housing shortage (about 4.5 million units nationwide; in CT, less than 4,000 houses available on the market vs. more than 15,000 pre-pandemic), many communities also face a shortage of developable land. Reusing existing developed spaces to incorporate housing is a smart and environmentally sustainable move to address these critical shortages.

• Create walkable commercial and community-oriented retail spaces. All communities, regardless of size, can benefit socially and economically from a denser commercial and retail core. The town decided in the 1960s (more than two generations ago) to move that density to the Halls Road area, which changed the character of Old Lyme from its historic land use patterns. It’s now time to retrofit that space for the next several generations with new spaces for a 21st century walkable retail and commercial district gives the town’s residents of all ages another destination where they can connect.

• Offer better traffic planning, safer multimodal transportation options, and greater community connectivity. Walkable, bikeable spaces would be a boon to our young people, especially nearby middle and high school students, and better connect the cultural and commercial districts of Old Lyme. While maintaining parking supply, the HROD also gets people out of their vehicles and makes more allowances for non-car travel.

• Encourage creative retrofitting of our existing tired, poorly planned strip mall retail spaces. All over the country, planners are discussing “retrofitting suburbia.” (See June Williamson and Ellen Dunham-Jones’ award-winning book, Retrofitting Suburbia.) The Halls Road Overlay District embraces these smart planning and design principles to remake Old Lyme’s designated commercial and retail space to be automobile accessible, but not dependent; incorporate mixed uses; and increase retail and service options here in town.

Change is coming, and Old Lyme needs to be ready for it. As the Halls Road Improvement Committee has stated, doing nothing is also a choice, and doing nothing has consequences. I am concerned about the fate of the Halls Road area without the HROD, its provisions, and its review procedures in place. Much of the development opponents erroneously fear the HROD will bring will indeed come, but not because of the HROD. Why not incentivize better development patterns than what zoning currently allows as a countermeasure to highly-profitable, but community impoverishing highway-oriented development?

In closing, I want to acknowledge the concerns of small business owners who currently occupy space in the existing strip mall developments on Halls Road regarding rent increases and displacement. No one wants to see businesses displaced, but it is unclear how the HROD, rather than property owners and developers, would be responsible for this outcome. If these parcels sell, there is no guarantee that new owners would not redevelop with the same result. However, I think the community would benefit from understanding if or how the HROD review board or another town entity might be empowered to negotiate rent stabilization considerations for existing businesses in new development under the overlay.

The HROD benefits our community and promotes a sustainable future for Old Lyme and helps prevent the as-of-right services outdated zoning and planning principles currently allow on Halls Road. These are the real threat to our community’s character and future.