Restaurant Plans For BP Station Site: Drive-through? Fast Food?
Raccoon Creek, LLC, the same people with the Mill District development plans for South Main Street, have submitted a development plan to the Licking County Planning Department for the old BP Station site on South Cherry Street. The plan for a restaurant will require at least 8 variances from the Granville Township Zoning Board before it is eligible for approval by the Licking County Planning Department. The site also is within the Inner Protection Zone of the Granville Village drinking water supply.
The plans were submitted to the Licking County Planning Department on November 19, 2008. However, before the county planners can act on them, the developer must receive variances from the Township.
The property is zoned “General Business District” on the township zoning map. The Township Zoning Resolution defines this district as:
Section 807 General Business District (GB)
The purpose of the GB District will be to encourage the establishment of areas for general business that meet the needs of a local market. As a mixed-use area, it will accommodate retail businesses and services, professional offices and services, small item fabrication, as well as residences and recreational areas. The individual uses in this district will be compatible with each other and will not jeopardize neighborhood or community property values. Uses will be characteristically of small scale and low density so that they will not corrupt the natural environment or sully the natural resources of the area. [Emphasis added]
According to the Zoning Resolution, the plan appears to double the allowable lot coverage on the site and the site itself is too small for this development.
The plan appears to offer the possibility of a drive-through on the restaurant. Drive-through restaurants offer little in tax revenues but place a high demand on infrastructure. The location of this restaurant with a drive-through would tend to draw traffic from Route 16 rather than offer a more family-oriented, Granville-resident establishment as does Creno’s, the restaurant next door to this site.
The required variances are shown in red in the table below.
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In addition to these variances, the Township must consider the appropriateness of the physical location of the site for this development. This is especially compelling because the developer is proposing using an on-site waste water treatment plant. Furthermore, the developer is proposing to double the allowable impervious coverage and thus, increase the runoff.
The site is located within the “Inner Protection Zone” of the Granville Village drinking water supply as defined by the Ohio EPA Division of Drinking and Ground Water. The image below shows the protection zones of Granville’s water wells. To see a larger version, click on the image.
The BP site is in the lower right-hand corner of the Inner Protection Zone near the yellow square symbol.
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granvillaz....
Did you mean the dogs or the children were begging as you ate your waffle cone? Dogs are one thing but the kids in uniforms begging is just too much. Perhaps an additional bow hunting season is in order!!!
Shades of Oliver
It was those darn, meddling kids!
You're so right, hungryingranville...
That’s the biggest drag about Granville: not being able to get a cup’o joe at a drive thru before i go out and slay deer or rangle a bass!!! I may just move ‘cuz this place had nothing to offer in the way of early morning fast food coffee.
On top of that I have to wait as long as 10 minutes in the evening during the summer to get food at Knuckleheads or Whitt’s(both Granville owned and run!) because of all the little leaguers getting in the way….Alladins (locally owned/oper.)is a drag on sunday mornings because of all the Granville church goers who stop by after services…thank God for Bob Evans on sundays where I can go and not run into anyone from Granville and have a quiet meal….and have you ever been to Subway at noon? Forget about getting your sandwich in one minute….I won’t even talk about ELMS at lunch or the Wednesday family night….just WAY too many Granville people supporting local businesses.
A Modest Proposal
The village council could ban all children in uniforms from Broadway. And dogs. It’s like, how am I supposed to enjoy my waffle cone with sprinkles when they’re silently begging for it the whole time? Oh, sure, they’re well-behaved and everything but I can see it in their big brown eyes. As far as the churches, well they should just pack up and leave town. Their work is done here. This is something I’ve been after for years. That should solve the custard issue as well as the Sunday morning hot spot. But the Subway issue? You’re on your own, pal. That place blows.
Newark opens at 5:30 am
I haven’t seen any ordinances prohibiting a business from opening prior to 6 am. However, Caribou opens at 5:30 am. (And for outdoor sportsman crowd, you can fill up your thermos even earlier at many Newark locations.) Just another dollar Granville can kiss goodbye.
Convenience for Granville residents
I have some paint thinner I need to dispose on my way to Cleveland next week. Do you think we can set up a drive-through toxic waste disposal site in Granville?
The inconvenience this town imposes on its residents is outrageous. No wonder Granville has lost ground to Newark.
Comparisons and convenience
It is a bit specious to compare Caribou coffee with toxic waste. However, a local disposal site for paint thinner would be a huge benefit to Granville. Last night I finished applying the second coat of varnish to some trim work I recently finished staining. After cleaning the brushes with mineral spirits, I poured the waste down the drain. YesMan of course would have carefully placed your waste in a sealed container and drove it Cleveland for proper disposal.
21st Street
Ah, I knew it well…an undulating two laner not far east of the Crawford barn which crawled north from there into a minor swamp….
singlepie
Granville doesn't ban fast food restaurants
Remember, Knuckleheads is fast food. McDonald’s is free to open a restaurant anywhere in the Granville, including the historic district, if it complies with zoning laws.
The typical fast-food restaurant doesn’t open in Granville because the business model requires reinventing an area into something non-Granville-like. The fast-food business model is largely fixed and well-known: a rectangular box, surrounded by asphalt, located on a busy road, food served out the window. The design of the building functions largely as a loud sign that resembles 10,000 other similar buildings.
Granville is a place that doesn’t need to be reinvented. To reinvent the entrance to a lovely Village based on the fast-food model would be foolish. The Comprehensive Plan survey shows there’s no support for this.
Imagine what 21st Street in Newark was like before it was reinvented. It used to be some place. Now it’s Nowhere, as in the Geography of Nowhere.
Fast food restaurants are free to operate in Granville if they follow the same rules as everyone else. Fast food operators need to create a business model that works here. It’s not the job of Granville to reinvent itself to serve cookie-cutter fast food restaurant plans.
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Notes: (1) The fast food restaurants at Cherry Valley Road, the result of bungled zoning that resulted in a 1998 overhaul of zoning laws, proves the rule. (2) Both Village and Township zoning prohibits traditional fast food restaurants.
amen, ct, on "give me a break..."
Oooooooooooo…those darn academic types…always trying to ruin everything until they die and leave us here to deal with all those students’ poisoned minds!
singlepie
give me a break...
“Academic types”, what the hell does that mean?
People with an education beyond High School?
People who teach HS or college?
People who eat at McD’s are NOT educated?
So, people are ‘types” to you,eh? I have an idea as what “type” you are but Jack will edit this and not allow it to appear.
Interested Observer I travel
Interested Observer
I travel each morning to Columbus or Cleveland and it makes me sad to say that I can not spend my money in Granville for coffee or breakfast prior to 6 AM.
A McD’s would be great … I find it offensive that I am being protected from myself by the academic types.
The world does not revolve around you
While it may be to your perceived personal benefit to spend money in a fast food joint that will take that money and send it to some other city where the company is headquartered, others of us want to support local merchants who keep their money in the local community.
The reason for keeping a McDonalds out is not to protect you from yourself. It is to protect our community’s financial well-being and quality of life from destruction.
Fast food restaurants increase costs (read taxes to us taxpayers) and do not really benefit schools. Translation: they cost more than they give to the community.
There are reasons why people pay a lot of money to live in Granville. Schools are part of it. Quality of life is another major factor. Somehow property in Granville sells for more than most places even though we don’t have a McDonalds. In reality it is partly because we don’t have places like McDonalds that property sells for so much in Granville.
You can go to a McDonalds in just about any community. Granville attracts and retains people who like the experience of not going to the same old places that are everywhere else. If you want McDonalds coffee next door or if you don’t understand that Granville is truly special in part because we aren’t like nearly everywhere else with a bunch of national chains, I am afraid Granville is not the best place you could have chosen in which to live.
But, do not despair, there are plenty of places with McDonalds. You might consider living in Pataskala, Newark, Heath, Columbus, or any number of other places.
The bottom line is not every community can appeal to everyone. Each community has its own advantages and disadvantages. That is what is great about this country. You, or I, or anyone, can choose to live in a community that has places like McDonalds or a community that does not have places like McDonalds.
Protecting people from themselves?
ot - Your logic suggests that we should boycott DelMar since it owned by those awful out of towner types taking Granville money back to Columbus with them. Thank goodness Granville hasn’t required Granville citizenship in order to operate a restaurant. (Yet)
Don't quote me on this...
But I believe that no business can be open before 6 A.M. in the village limits? So that 5 A.M. cup of coffee may not come anyway. Even though it’s a great idea. Lets go Micky D’s
-The Duke
same here..
I also end up at Bob Evans a few times a year and have never seen Granville folks there.
I wonder if given the go ahead whether McD’s or any other business would start building in the next few years here in Granville or anywhere for that matter.
Paramount Financial closed thier doors and said goodbye to ALL workers on Friday…this is not good time to build or start a business.
Five years?
Stop rewriting history. The Kents put the property up for sale last year and raised the rent out of reason on Bob, the owner/mechanic who owned and ran the place for all of the 20 years I’ve been here.
His use of the space served our community…a McD’s will bring people off the freeway to their site and not to downtown.
The taxes generated already by The Wendys is equal the cost of only THREE Granville students per year. Wendys and Bob Evans have contributed nothing in terms of payback to our town.
Do either of them have their names posted as supporters of The Fourth of July Celebration,Blues fest, The Bi-Annual picnic,Rec Commission events? The answer is: NO!
Contributions
Funny how Bob Evans is filled with GRANVILLE residents every day. I guess offering a decent meal locally is of “no value” in Granville… unless you consider all the LOCAL residents that would be driving to Heath to spend our dollars daily (or the local jobs provided).
Let’s hope Panera comes in right after McDonalds.
Robert Evans
I go into Bob Evans a few times a year and I’ve never seen anyone from Granville there. Guess it depends on when you go. I go to the Aladdin more often and always see someone from Granville I know. Not that this is how you decide zoning issues.
Remember, the people approved Bob Evans at the ballot box, by 5 votes, I think. Decorating Granville’s entrance with fast food restaurants has always been unpopular and, in my opinion, foolish. Granville residents have said the same in surveys. Still, if someone thinks this is how to rezone Main and Cherry, the ballot box is the place to do it.
Bob Evans won only by lying to the voters
Bob Evans won only by lying to the voters about the costs and benefits of their restaurant.
They did this by using “push-poll” tactics. Typically used by big-city political campaigns the tactic is to pretend you are conducting a poll while you are actually putting false impressions into peoples’ minds.
For example, “Would it change your opinion of Bob Smith if you knew that he does not support the Boy Scouts?” While of course Bob supports the Boy Scouts the question is designed to and with some gullible folks does leave the impression that Bob does not support the Boy Scouts.
Personally I will go to the Aladdin and help keep them in business. (I don’t like pre-digested food anyway.)
cornbread
Micky D’s would be a good idea. It’d be a big money maker for the village. Either way…change is good. If these people were so worried about the look of the area, they wouldn’t have let a vacant BP station sit there for the past five years. Clear and thanks for that. Couch.
-The Duke
Hardly, LOL
McDonald’s would cost the village money for road wear and the like. That is what fast food businesses do. They do not benefit the schools and they cost the municipality money.
Much better for both schools and the municipality are office uses.
As for restaurants, I will continue to patronize the locally-owned eateries. That way my money stays in the local community rather than going over to Franklin County or off to some corporate headquarters somewhere else.
Not only no to Mcdonalds but
Not only no to Mcdonalds but HELL no.
If you want to eat that “food” then go to Newark!
Have a nice day.
Go Bucks
McDonalds is coming to Granville
Vote yes for McDonalds - it will give us another restaurant that is kid-friendly.
I say YES for McDonalds on the BP site.
We need more places to dine.
You're kidding,right?
McDonalds is “kid friendly”? You’ve got to be joking.
Save eating that crap for the family car trips in the summer.
Drive-thru restaurant problems
This proposal has additional problems not noted in the story.
Cherry Street/Columbus Road is designated in the proposed Comprehensive Plan as one of seven Scenic Byways in Granville. These routes are designed to protect the look and feel of a place, and to avoid the commercial sprawl that defines so many non-descript place. The Township started the process in 2000 — thanks, Jim Havens — and the new Comprehensive plan moves Granville forward. The result should be thoughtful development rules along our defining thoroughfares.
For now, the Township has a very good Transportation Corridor Overlay District in place. It is designed to protect the look of Granville along its major thoroughfares and to prevent traffic problems that result for sprawl. (Think 21st Street.)
* The Transportation Corridor requires parking lots and buildings to be set back 100 feet from the right-of-way, as does the underlying business zoning rules. (Breaking two Township rules is needed for the development.)
* Loading areas, trash bins, etc. must be located in the back of the building to screen them from the road. In this proposal, the back appears to be reserved for a drive-thru lane. The unsightly accessories are pushed to the side of the property, in the rear, but visible from the road.
* Parking must be located to the side and the rear. In this proposal, it’s right out front — and to the side and rear. It’s everywhere. It’s essentially a box floating in a sea asphalt.
* Driveways are supposed to be designed to reduce traffic problems. Here, the building calls for two entrances, right next to the highway, rather than the more traffic-friendly one. BP was grandfathered. This much bigger building, which generates far more traffic, is not.
* Landscaping to shield parking lots is required. This plan shows none.
* Bike and pedestrian access is supposed to be provided. Again, none.
* With the change of use, the Township transportation ordinance requires new trees and shrubs to de-uglify that development when seen from the road. The proposal indicates new asphalt, not new shrubs and trees. Although those could be added later, little non-impervious surface exists to locate them.
Overall, the developer’s problem seems to be:
1) He tries to do way too much with a small lot of 0.89 acres.
2) He designs his building as an attachment to the highway, not to Granville. But Township Zoning and the Comprehensive Plans — new and proposed — are designed explicitly to make commercial development fit in Granville, not as a highway adjunct. (Thanks Jim Havens — again!)
The BP station was grandfathered. It’s possible that a small business can work on this tiny lot. But a proposal for a big building — nearly the size of CVS — seems doomed.
Granville Village has nearly identical rules. The developer will likely have to annex into the Village for sewer and water, so this is relevant.
When a developer proposes something that violates every rule in the book — Township and Village — he’s wasting everybody’s time. Good development begins at the drawing board.
why so negative?
How about giving the developer a little credit for leaving a blade of grass on the lot? Your so negative. Ballus fiction, dude. Ballus fiction.
?
’ I’ll take a Quarter pounder w/ cheese , a large fry and a Coke!