Letter to the Editor: Don’t Reelect HROD Advocates Shoemaker, Lampos; Vote Row B

Dear Editor:

The Halls Road Overlay District or HROD was fortunately defeated by the Old Lyme Zoning Commission, but only after the majority of Old Lyme voters and taxpayers made their voices known. The battle cry was: Overlay – NO WAY. Yay!

HROD would have allowed huge buildings for mixed-use housing, retail, and restaurants to be built with multi-story parking garages along the front of Halls Road. The whole scheme was an absurd attempt of a few people to forever alter Old Lyme’s character.

The fact that this proposal ever made it by the Town’s Planning Commission is staggering at best. What is more, the HROD proposal paid no attention to three main problems:

A. Halls Road is a State Road, not a town road and is the alternate traffic route through Old Lyme when I-95 backs up, a common occurrence. Traffic problems would become untenable.

B. There is not sufficient aquifer water for wells along Halls Road to support such development volume. This could lead to water quality issues for existing property owners.

C. There is not sufficient land present on Halls Road to provide adequate septic systems to make such growth feasible. This would lead to sewers being required and where would that take the town?

As a former owner (40%) of the Old Lyme shopping center for 20 years, I am very familiar with the septic situation in the area. Our system, though fragile, worked for many years, but for example, it can accommodate the sewage of only ONE real restaurant and no other major users of wastewater. As owners, we did, over the years, research the possibilities of sewage disposal in the area. Studies indicated the ground would not permit it.

I was shocked to hear of the proposed “overlay” project for so many dwellings along Halls Road in the shopping center. Had they not done their homework? Then, I was even more surprised to discover that two of our “Selectmen” were championing the crazy scheme. Martha Shoemaker and Jim Lampos were elected to “take care of the people of Old Lyme,” not to put them in jeopardy. Now, guilty of either irresponsibility or lack of sound judgment, they are asking the town to reward this incredibly dumb initiative by re-electing them. Go figure!!

This whole initiative was a boondoggle that would only have irreversibly changed Old Lyme and cost the town substantial legal and design study fees.

Don’t re-elect the Advocates of HROD.

Vote Row B this Election.