Old Lyme Zoning Survey Draws 500+ Responses, Officials Encourage More Participation

OLD LYME, CT – Business owners, property owners, and residents are asked to provide input on revisions to the town’s zoning regulations through a survey that closes at the end of the month. 

Land Use Coordinator Eric Knapp said more than 500 people have responded so far. The latest U.S. Census estimates show there are 3,185 households in town.

The survey is available here.

The survey will help guide the ongoing zoning rewrite process, which is in its second stage. The first stage, completed this spring, updated regulations to make them more user friendly and legally compliant. 

In stage two, the Zoning Commission will evaluate public input as it considers potential changes and solutions as part of a sweeping review of the rules that dictate how land can be used in town.  

Knapp said that when creating questions for the survey, the commission anticipated three main categories of concerns: environmental concerns, residential zones and housing concerns, and commercial/industrial zone concerns.

Completing the survey is anonymous unless the user provides their email and takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.

Knapp said the main purpose of the survey is to give community members the opportunity to provide feedback on current zoning regulations in addition to posing concerns and ideas for change. 

Knapp described the survey as a way to give community members a “sense of buy in” in the process of revising the regulations.

“There’s a sense that the Zoning Commission meets in a room and decides things and you find out in the newspaper later,” he said. 

He said he hopes people will “voice what matters to them” so that the Zoning Commission can incorporate their concerns.

Following the survey, he said work will be done to figure out how to translate the feedback into redrafted regulations. A big part of this will be a workshop held by the Zoning Commission to convert the community feedback into regulations with the help of a consultant. The workshop will include members of other Old Lyme boards and commissions as well as community stakeholders.

“You don’t just go from survey results to regulations,” he said.

The process is expected to conclude around March, with more opportunities for public input prior to adoption of the revised regulations.