Letter: CT Audubon Center at Odds with Nice, Quiet Neighborhood in Old Lyme

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To the Editor:

My wife and I live a couple of parcels away from the proposed Audubon Center on Ferry Road. We moved here four years ago because we wanted to live in a nice, quiet neighborhood in Old Lyme close to town.  We found the perfect spot here. We are adamantly opposed to construction of an office building to house daily office workers in our residential neighborhood, and the vast majority of our neighbors have signed a petition against this plan. 

The CT Audubon society has tried to reassure us that the planned 4,000 square foot facility will be aesthetically pleasing and think they will placate us by removing invasive species and planting native species!  Thanks, but no thanks.  An office building populated with at least five daily office staff, a conference room capacity of 40 people, a septic system large enough to handle that capacity, a parking lot constructed for 12 vehicles, commercial lighting to light the space, not to mention the influx of more dangerous and increased traffic congestion and months of construction activity — all of this makes this proposed office building the actual invasive species.

The CT Audubon society representatives tell us they want to be “good neighbors.”  Invading our residential neighborhood and moving forward with this plan against the wishes of the residents here is hardly being a good neighbor.  Robert Frost wrote, “good fences make good neighbors,” not “commercial office buildings with 12 parking spaces make good neighbors.”

The CT Audubon society should leave this presently uninhabited, pristine property alone and our neighbors at peace, and find another space in a location more suitable for a commercial office building. 

Rick Bueti
Old Lyme