[Insert Elected Representative Contact Info Here]
Re: Proposed Hannaford Supermarket
New Lebanon, NY
Dear [Insert Name Here]
New Lebanon has lost a planned supermarket that was absolutely critical to our town. We need your help to to reverse this.
As you may know, New Lebanon is an economically depressed rural town in Columbia County that has been declared a food desert; there is no market selling fresh food for miles.
Hannaford Supermarkets made extensive preparations over a two-year period to come to New Lebanon and then withdrew their application last week.
The costs of preparing their build site, including the cost of complying with DOT regulations, got to be too high.
How can a deal between a town that badly needs a food market and a market that badly wants to build one be strangled by road regulations?
We understand that a solution can be to reduce the speed limit in New Lebanon from 40 to 30 miles per hour.
This would lessen the DOT requirements of stores who want to build in town and help us to build the local economy.
It will also help us to turn our main street from a highway pass-through into a town center, which is one of the goals of our town’s Comprehensive Plan.
Our Town Board is proposing this speed reduction to the DOT, although a change like this can often take years. But we can’t buy fresh food anywhere near New Lebanon, so this change must happen quickly in order to allow a market to come to town.
Can you help us to ensure that we can quickly drop the speed limit in New Lebanon so that we can pick up a supermarket?
Please let the New York DOT know that you support bringing a supermarket to the food desert of New Lebanon, and that they must fast-track the approval of a new speed limit to make that possible.
Very truly yours,
[Your name]
[Address]
cc: Hannaford Supermarkets
145 Pleasant Hill Road
Scarborough, ME 04074