OLD LYME — When a public hearing on plans to redevelop the town’s retail corridor were postponed at the end of February, many opponents of the project believed the delay was meant to deflate growing opposition to the planned zoning overlay.
But if that was the plan, it didn’t pan out.
At least 650 people packed into the Lyme-Old Lyme High School auditorium or stood out in the hallway on Wednesday night, exceeding the capacity of the town’s largest venue. The turnout — the largest since the region showed up seven years ago in opposition to a plan for a high-speed rail bypass through the town’s historic district — was overwhelmingly against the zoning overlay, with many carrying signs expressing opposition.
Paul Orzel, who chairs the Zoning Commission, and has been largely supportive of the changes, attempted from the start to control the crowd of local residents.
“This is clearly an issue that has generated strong feelings, but tonight’s discussion must remain respectful, ” Orzel warned the crowd. “We are a respectful community. I will not tolerate name-calling, personal attacks, speculation about motives or the spreading of rumors. Let’s keep our focus on the facts. The more specific the facts, the better.”
Michael Miller, the Republican co-chair, asked if the applicant — in this case the Democratic First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker and the Halls Road Improvements Committee — would extend the hearing to allow the overflow crowd to participate at a future date.
Bill Sweeney, the attorney for the committee, offered instead to defer his comments to allow the public the opportunity to speak — part of a testy exchange between members of audience calling for a vote on the matter, and the town’s land use official, Eric Knapp, who made efforts to take back control and begin the hearing on time.
“We’re not going to be doing this by mob vote. We’re just not,” Knapp said. “This is going to be with the commission in charge and you are going to be respectful. I’m sorry. That’s the only way it’s going to happen.”
But the audience quickly settled into a civil, at-times feisty debate for just over three hours, with residents lining up to speak sometimes for — but overwhelmingly against — the plan to encourage retail and residential development on Halls Road.
A variety of ideas for beautifying the commercial corridor, installing sidewalks and incentivizing new development have been under discussion for more than a decade — it’s the third time a proposal has been sent to Zoning — but the public split over the overlay district has visibly sharpened in recent months over the latest plans to allow mixed-use commercial and resident development which those opposing say is out of scale and character for the town.
Supporters say instead that fears of as many as 1600 new apartments on Halls Road — a rough calculation of 40 units an acre over the 40-acre district — are overblown, and that the proposal offers the chance to transform the town’s 60s-style shopping mall and parking into a downtown-like walkable avenue with shops and cafes.
The public has their say
In timed two-minute intervals, residents were allowed to sign up and testify on the plan.
Resident Kevin McMahon questioned whether the proposal offered an adequate solution to the lack of affordable housing as the project’s advocates claimed.
“I always question when things like this happen, who gets rich in the end? That’s a question that everybody needs to answer,” McMahon said. “Old Lyme has a quaint New England charm. That’s why I raised my family here and hopefully my grandchildren.”
Bud Canaday, who said he once owned 40% of the shopping center on Halls Road and was an original member of the Halls Road Improvements Committee, warned the commission that the lack of sewers destined the idea of redeveloping for restaurants and hundreds of new apartments to failure.
“What we have now in the Old Lyme Shopping Center is that we cannot have another restaurant. You can’t do anything else except what they have now,” Canaday said. “If you’re going to consider a whole new idea, you’re wasting your time because it’ll never work.”
Sloan Danenhower, who left his seat as an alternate on the commission to protest the proposal — Orzel later declined to support his reappointment and the Democratic majority on the Board of Selectmen voted against reappointing him — read from the commission’s own regulations in opposing the Overlay.
Quoting the preamble to the town’s zoning regulations, Danenhower warned that the project violated the express purpose of the commission to “preserve the rural character of the town.”
At the end of his speech Danenhower, an unaffiliated voter married to Republican Selectwoman Jude Read, turned to face the audience.
“I would like to ask everybody opposed to Halls Road to please raise their hand,” Danenhower said.
In the audience it was difficult to see a hand that wasn’t raised.
Danenhower walked past the table where former fellow members of commission were seated and waved to them with a triumphant smile as he climbed the stairs.
In a surprise effort to block the Overlay, Danenhower filed a petition against the project in March on behalf of 15 owners of property representing more than 20% of the land affected by the plan. The petition, which was quickly acknowledged by town’s land use officials, forces the commission to meet the threshold of a supermajority — 4 out of 5 votes — to approve the plan.
A slightly different version of the overlay won over a majority of the commission in 2023 but fell short of the supermajority required when Planning came out in opposition to the Overlay.
This time, Planning endorsed the project unanimously, seemingly clearing the way to approval prior to Danenhower’s petition.
Robin Breeding, a leading voice against the project, told the commission that she did not understand why they were even considering a plan that failed to do much of what was claimed by proponents.
“It’s a plan that actually doesn’t do anything that it says it does,” Breeding said. “On the one hand, advocates of the overlay say their plan calls for only a couple of hundred new apartments on Halls Road. On the other hand, they insist, again against the advice of this commission, to include parking garages that would only make economic sense if they built over a thousand units.”
Breeding went on to point out what she said were other contradictions, including the fact that the Overlay would still allow the gas stations and highway services that advocates say it would prevent.
Breeding ended with a warning to the commission that “On the one hand, they claim that 80% of the town is for this plan,” before gesturing to the audience obviously opposed to the plan.
Others who spoke said they were generally in favor of the plan, but questioned various provisions, including the scale of allowable construction.
Stephanie Mickle, for example, said she was in favor of the idea of mixed-use proposal, the preservation of an old New England feeling and the possibility of adding affordable housing, but she expressed disappointment with the scale of allowed construction.
“Allowing building sizes up to 200 feet long, 35 feet tall, three stories on both sides of the street is not what I think fits Old Lyme. We have a quaint New England village-type town,” Mickle said. “I was anticipating the overlay plan would result in a street like Clinton’s downtown.”
Jeff Hartmann said he supported the proposal but suggested changes to achieve a compromise, such as reducing the density to 20 units per acre and reducing allowable building to 175 ft in length.
“This cap represents a reasonable density for multifamily residential development, ensuring growth remains compatible with existing infrastructure, traffic patterns and community standards,” Hartmann said.
One of the most recurring criticisms was the scale of the project.
In that sense, Heidi Kettler put into perspective the impact that 100 or 200 additional housing units could have on the area. According to her own calculations, the new housing could overwhelm the town’s schools.
“Where are we going to put them? Don’t we right now have a 50 million dollar bill for improvement in the schools?” Kettler said. “In elementary school, we’re going to get another 100 kids. That’s impossible. It’s just not feasible.”
Wednesday night’s hearing comes after a just- announced 7.4% increase in the school budget next fiscal year that is largely the result of new school construction costs, and combined with property reassessments, means that more than 1,500 residents are expected to pay 20% more in taxes in the coming year.
With many local officials up for election in November, comments inevitably turned to the politics of the matter.
“There are three people in this town that could change this,” Shaun Mastroianni, a Republican candidate for state senate last year, told the crowd. “I urge you tonight, tomorrow, you write to your first selectwoman that is sitting hiding in the back, and you write to your other selectmen. And remember what they decide you vote on in November.”
Voices of support
Some calculations circulating on social media as part of a petition opposing the overlay suggest that as many as 1,600 units could be built on all 40 acres of Halls Road.
Supporters of the project say that that calculation is wrong and that the lack of sewers and limits of lot coverage would reduce that number to significantly fewer apartments.
Mark Terwilliger, an informal spokesperson for the project, took issue with those calculations.
“I feel obliged to speak because there’s so much misinformation, so much misunderstanding about what is actually in the regulations,” Terwilliger said, pointing to Colin Mahoney who launched the online petition that gathered more than 1,200 signatures against the project. “He helped make sure that happened when he wrote the petition and did a really simple piece of math and said 40 units maximum times 40 acres is 1600 apartments.”
Terwilliger compared the maximums to speed limits — a familiar metaphor for residents living off I-95 — arguing that speed limits don’t determine how fast people actually drive. Terwilliger said he did not expect more than 400 apartments along Halls Road.
“That’s just one of many errors that he made in interpretation,” Terwilliger said.
Mahoney replied that he had checked his calculations with his lawyer and based them on the committee’s own documents.
“The point is, you’ve set yourself at least 400 apartments in that space, which is still too much,” Mahoney said.
Kimberly Thompson also said she supported the project.
“I love this town. I would have liked to go back here when I was younger, but I didn’t have access. I couldn’t put a down payment on a home,” Thompson said. “The only thing available to me was rentals, and there are no rentals in Old Lyme.”
Ellen Calkins said the project “preserves what’s best in Old Lyme” but regretted the tone of the public debate.
“I want to say first how disappointed I am that people would be booing each other and would interrupt each other when they’re speaking,” Calkins said. “I really do think we can be above that here.”
Sweeney pitches a compromise
Sweeney said that at the end of February the Halls Road Committee had presented a series of suggested changes to the commission. He said that they were not amendments, but ideas that the commission could consider in deliberations.
“When you review a zoning text amendment, this is not a special permit. This is not a site plan. But this is a zoning text amendment like the one before you tonight,” Sweeney said. “You sit in your legislative capacity and you have broad and sweeping discretion in your review of these types of applications.”
Among the suggestions were to reduce the maximum number of residential units from 40 to 30 per acre, increase the maximum setback allowed for any structure from 15 feet to 20 feet from Halls Road, and establish that no building can have more than a 20,000 square foot of footprint.
Michael Barnes, an unaffiliated alternate on the commission, questioned whether the project’s affordable housing criteria could be changed, such as only 10% being required and limits to 30 years.
Sweeney reiterated that the committee was free to modify the criteria during deliberation, but stressed that changes could affect the economic viability of the project.
Barnes also question the maximum footprint of 20,000 square feet, given that the overlay allows for up to three stories, or more than 60,000 square feet of residential and commercial space in a single building.
“That mass is a little concerning to me,” Barnes said. “That’s a lot of mass.”
Michael Fogliano, an unaffiliated alternate who until recently also chaired the town’s Affordable Housing Committee, questioned the affordability of the designated affordable apartments which he said could rent for more than $2000 a month.
As the audience filed out and the hearing was closed to further public comments, Orzel read a statement to residents who by that point were no longer listening.
“We appreciate you being here tonight and sharing your thoughts. Your input matters and I assure you that we will weigh it carefully as we move forward with the decision,” Orzel read. “As a reminder, absent consent of the applicant, the Commission was obligated to close the public hearing tonight. That means we are no longer permitted to receive any public input. I understand this may be frustrating, but the state statutes are absolutely clear.”
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Editor’s note: Robin Breeding is married to CT Examiner editor Gregory Stroud, but was not consulted during the reporting of this story