NEWS

YMCA considers Mahackeno location for new facility

By: Meg Learson Grosso , Staff Writer Minuteman 03/04/2004

Foot said last week that traffic engineers have been hired to perform studies of traffic at the intersection of Exit 41 of the Merritt Parkway and Route 33. The Y is also doing limited environmental studies.

So far, the YMCA has not hired an architect or done any site-planning, according to Foot, who said everything was in "preliminary and conceptual" stages at this time.

However, residents of River Lane and Rice's Lane are extremely concerned because they fear that if the Y puts a large facility there, it would generate entirely too much traffic either for their residential streets or for the Exit 41 ramp of the Merritt, according to Larry Untermeyer, who lives on the corner of River and Rice's Lane.

The Y, which runs a summer camp on the Mahackeno property, has been looking for several years for a new site. Y officials say the current YMCA building is overcrowded.

On Sunday, about 30 residents from these two streets met in the home of one resident. When Y board members heard of the meeting ahead of time, they offered to attend and tell residents what they knew about their plans so far.

Rosemary Halstead, president of the YMCA board of directors; Ted Davis, a member of the Mahackeno steering committee; and Iain Bruce attended what was a cordial and strictly informational meeting, according to both sides.

One concern of residents is that there will be some sort of a drive or road that would connect Sunny Lane with Rice's Lane through the Mahackeno property. At the present time there is none. However, residents were told that there most likely would be, if the plans go through.

Sunny Lane can be reached only from the on/off ramp of Exit 41 on the south side of the Merritt Parkway. That ramp begins on the Wilton Road.The Y has acquired two 1.33 acre parcels of land on Sunny Lane contiguous to the Camp Mahackeno property which residents say will make it easier for the Y to have a connecting driveway. There are presently four homes visible on Sunny Lane and one more driveway.

According to Kathy Barnard, Director of Planning and Zoning, the P&Z Commission gave permission for Camp Mahackeno to widen the Rice's Lane entrance in 1980, with the provision that school buses and vans could not use that entrance for the summer camp, nor could that entrance be used for camp pick-up and drop-off by individual cars.

According to Untermeyer, this provision was ignored for a good many years and buses apparently used Rice's Lane. When residents of Rice's and River Lanes brought that provision to the attention of the YMCA, the Y went back to the P&Z to attempt to have the restriction removed. However, in April of 2002, that request was denied because no convincing reason was given, according to Barnard.

Since then, buses have ceased using that entrance to take children to Camp Mahackeno, according to Untermeyer.