Support for Halls Road Master Plan and Halls Road Overlay District
Halls Road is our town’s main retail/commercial center. Going forward, it should be developed with the aim of making it look, feel, and function as a pedestrian-friendly town center. It should have safe and attractive pedestrian and bicycle connections with the historic town center and ‘Arts District’ on Lyme Street. Halls Road in the future should more nearly resemble the small-town, mixed-use neighborhood that Lyme Street was before 1960.
The limited build-able land along Halls Road should be developed in such a way as to serve the particular needs of Old Lyme. Under the current commercial-only zoning, Halls Road’s location along I-95 means new investment is almost entirely limited to either chain stores (viewing Old Lyme as no more than Exit 70), or truck stops serving highway traffic. This is not what we want for Old Lyme’s future.
The current housing stock in Old Lyme is overwhelmingly (over 92%) of one kind: a single-family home on its own lot. Halls Road is an appropriate location in which to add other, smaller-scale types of market-rate housing, such as an apartment above a shop, or a condominium in a town house. These options are particularly attractive to the younger and older cohorts of current (or prospective) Old Lyme residents.
Allowing this kind of mixed-use development along Halls Road has other important advantages for the town. First: a living neighborhood with foot traffic is far better for retail trade, and helps retail businesses resist the growing competition of online commerce. A mixed-use neighborhood along Halls Road improves the chances that Old Lyme will continue to have the convenience of in-person retail shops in 2050. Second, because these housing types are currently scarce in Old Lyme, pent-up demand makes such developments highly attractive to investors. We believe developers would be willing to build some new retail and office space if it were a part of a larger mixed-use (residential and commercial) area. New investment along Halls Road will also increase the town’s tax base and revenues.
The Halls Road Master Plan Report, prepared by BSC, is a road map to these changes.
It proposes the Town design and build (with aid from available grants) a safe and attractive pedestrian and cyclist route from Lyme Street to the heart of the Halls Road district via a new pedestrian bridge over the Lieutenant River, and to make other significant improvements for the safety of walkers and bikers in the area along Halls Road.
It also proposes the creation of a Halls Road Overlay District that would allow mixed use to achieve the goals mentioned above. It would also allow the town to establish Design Guidelines to help ensure the “look and feel” of new development along Halls Road is more in keeping with that of historic Lyme Street.
I/We support the Town’s implementation of the Master Plan, and look forward to a Halls Road that will become a new, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly Town Center for Old Lyme in the Mid-21st Century.
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Please return by mail to: Old Lyme Zoning Commission, Memorial Town Hall, 52 Lyme St. Old Lyme CT 06371
By Email to Eric Knapp [email protected] with a cc: to Craig Bonatti [email protected]