By Gretchen Webster
WESTPORT — Closing off Church Lane for the summer — a boon to downtown businesses or a bust?
The Westport Downtown Association wants to know.
The merchant group has launched an online survey to gauge opinions about the seasonal closure, approved by the Board of Selectwomen annually since the pandemic, that transforms the street into a pedestrian shopping and dining mall.
On weekends, the street transforms again into a popular venue for outdoor music and dancing.
But some Main Street and Sconset Square merchants contend the loss of 17 Church Lane parking spaces and changes in traffic patterns downtown have a negative impact on their businesses.
The five-question survey will help the WDA determine whether to support closing Church Lane again this year, and if so, to gather information on what days and hours are preferred.
Parking, traffic impact assessed
Opinions, pro and con, about the seasonal Church Lane closure surfaced last week at a meeting of the Downtown Plan Implementation Committee, when Chair Randy Herbertson announced the survey.
“It sounds like they are considering a much narrower window for closing Church Lane,” possibly by shortening the season or keeping the street closed on weekends only, he said.
“This is a loved thing,” said Matthew Mandell, a District 1 member of the Representative Town Meeting and executive director of the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce. “We’re concerned about parking pressure downtown, but there is a reward to have something like this. It brings people downtown.”
Some merchants at the meeting opposed closing the street, however, saying they should also be consulted — and that a meeting for merchants only should be held on parking issues in downtown Westport, including the closure of Church Lane.
“You can’t have your cake and eat it. You can’t acknowledge there’s a parking problem then close off the street” losing spaces, Ciara Webster, a co-partner in both the Nômade restaurant and Nômade Design store, said of the street closure.
“If people love it that’s great, but they can’t have it because it’s taking away parking,” she said. “No one has polled merchants. They’re the ones who know.”
A portion of Church Lane initially was closed to traffic and parking during the COVID pandemic to allow more space for outside dining when restaurants were closed or had severely limited seating. Since then, the street closure from April to November has been approved annually by the Board of Selectwomen.
Downtown committee: “Not our call”
After the selectwomen approved the closure for the 2024 season last March, some merchants complained during the summer that customers were blocked from entering Sconset Square by long lines of traffic unable to use Church Lane as a pass-through from Myrtle Avenue to Post Road East. They also objected to the loss of parking spaces on the closed street.
At the end of last week’s DPIC discussion, Herbertson said the decision on whether to ask the selectwomen to approve another seasonal closure of Church Lane this year is ultimately up to the Westport Downtown Association and not the committee.
“We’re not an official decider here,” Herbertson said.
Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.
So essentially we have a situation in which there are clear winners -as well as a group of losers – so to speak. The latter group includes some merchants as well as downtown residents (politically speaking, anyone living in District 9 is invisible). So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the group with more power (the first group) is going to prevail here and the road will remain seasonally closed to traffic – no matter what.
Clear winners, a nasty autocrat.. who plans on running for governor.. god forbid ! While she destroys merchants
That run is an absolute joke.
She cannot even run our town. Anti business !!!!!!!
Ok, well I was thinking of other winners more particularly. But I guess understand your point. In any event, I’m generally viewing this a as semi-mob rule kinda thing. That’s just how many of these controversies go around here. The administration quietly tried to whip the RTM vote to deforest Jesup Green. But it didn’t work out number wise. In this instance, the favorability meter is probably running in the other direction; People want to come to my neighborhood to hang out – lots of people, I’m guessing. And they’re mainly ok with the negative consequences of a closed street, I think, because it isn’t a hardship for them personally. Were we to close Beachside Avenue seasonally to allow for dancing children, etc. it’s likely that there would be rioting. And lawyers. Anyway, it just is what it is. Church Lane will likely remain closed seasonally as before and those on the short end will have eat it. As for me, when the time comes, I’ll absolutely make sure my assessment is adjusted to reflect the quality of life impact of this policy. I’ll eat it. But I’m not going to pay for it too.