Old Lyme — The Economic Development Commission received far more responses than expected in a survey conducted as part of a larger study earlier this year — a promising sign, members said, that will give them the insight to move the town forward in a way residents support.

EDC Co-Chair Justin Fuller said that only 150 survey responses were needed to “be statistically relevant,” but because the commission received more than 800 responses from both residents and businesses, “this means that these results are going to be statistically valid,” he said.

“We now have a survey response that we know we can use to gauge what the town wants for itself,” he said.

The survey is part of a broad economic development study that the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, or CERC — a public-private nonprofit agency that works with towns across the state — has helped the EDC conduct over the past six months.

The completed study, for which the town allotted up to $52,000, will include the combined results from surveys, focus groups, workshops, housing studies, industry analyses and more. It will offer “a big-picture look” at the town’s business climate, while also aiming to provide strategic insight for development efforts.

CERC has not yet completed the study, but Fuller said it will be submitted to the town by late January. Its results will be posted online and discussed with the public and will be used to help plan for development changes the town wants to see.

Fuller said he and other EDC members were able to gauge some resident opinion from the survey’s raw numbers, which the EDC recently received. Hinting at what’s to come, Fuller said 80 percent of respondents said they “want to see something happen on Halls Road ... and only 20 percent said they don’t want to see anything on Halls Road.”

“What that means to us is that we can say, with a very straight face to the town and the public and our leadership, that we need to do something there, that that’s what a majority of the town wants,” Fuller said.

Moving forward, Fuller said 2020 will be about finalizing the research, socializing the report and providing formal input into the town’s next Plan of Conservation and Development, which is due at the end of 2020.

“Going into the next year after that, we will then need to have a serious talk about how to implement all those recommendations,” he said.

“A big action item will be to educate our selectmen on the outputs. We need to do that first so they are on board and then educate the town,” EDC member Greg Symon added.

m.biekert@theday.com