UPDATE: Zoning Board Meeting for Monday, December 19th 2022

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA

RICHMOND – Meeting for the first time since Sept. 2021, the Zoning Board of Review approved an application Monday for a special use permit for the addition of a second drive-throughlane at the McDonald’s restaurant at 12 Kingstown Road.

Appearing virtually at the public hearing on behalf of the applicant was Eric Dubrule of Bolher Engineering, of Southborough, MA, who explained the reasons a second lane was needed.

“This drive-through, today, functions with one order point and one lane, so effectively, if you were using the drive-through, you’d come into the site, however you came in, and circulate around. The drive-through would start,” he told the board, using a plan of the site to illustrate. “There’s one order point at the rear of the building. There’s a drive-through cash window and then you would pick up your order at the second window. What we are proposing to do is to make improvements, just to the drive-through and specifically, just to the drive-through ordering process, by adding on a second ordering point speaker to the site… We are adding a landscaped island, it’s curved, and an order point.”

Drive-through customers would still enter using a single lane, but the lane would split into two ordering points.

The second order lane, Dubrule explained, would address the issue of a line of cars formed by customers waiting to order.

“Some of those car queues can stack up behind the ordering points where you don’t want happening, again, behind the order points,” he said. “By adding the second order point, effectively what you do is, now, customers that would come in and otherwise be stuck behind the single order point under existing conditions, they would come in, recognize that someone may be making a long order, a more complicated order, and recognize that a car or two are stacking there, and they could just use the other lane that is moving.”

The new lane will be 10 feet wide. The existing drive-through lane, which is 12 feet wide, will also be upgraded with new signage and a new canopy over the order point. 

Several parking spaces will be lost to the new ordering lane, and the receptacle that houses the trash and recycling bins will be moved. The one-acre site, which is required to have at least 20 parking spaces, will be left with 36 spaces.

“For these improvements, we have removed about eight parking spaces along the rear,” Dubrule said. “We have moved, and proposing to replace the existing trash barrel that is located here, and we propose to rebuild it with a brand new trash barrel with Trex fencing.”

The Planning Board voted on Dec. 13 to recommend that the Zoning Board approve the site plan for the special use permit, after determining that the proposal was consistent with the town’s comprehensive plan. The restaurant is located in the town’s “general business” district.

The Planning Board attached four conditions to the approval of the site plan, which were read at Monday’s hearing by Town Planner Shaun Lacey.

1. The approved plan should be recorded with the Zoning Board decision.

2. The proposed trash enclosure should be located 10 feet from the west and north property lines to comply with the required setback for accessory structures.

3. To discourage drivers from cutting through the access to the ordering lanes by using the northeast entrance, stanchions will be installed along the striping of the new drive-through lane.

4. While the restaurant was built before the town introduced a dark sky ordinance for commercial structures, the Planning Board encouraged the applicant to use dark sky-compliant lighting outdoors.

“What’s the applicant’s position in respect to the conditions recommended by the Planning Board,” board Chair Nicholas Solitro asked Dubrule.

“We’re amenable to addressing all of those,” Dubrule replied.

With no members of the public asking to comment on the application, board members, in a unanimous vote, approved the special use permit.