Lady’s Island Dunkin’ Donuts denied. Why Beaufort County changed its position
A proposed Lady’s Island Dunkin’ Donuts coffee shop with a drive-thru, which prompted push-back from residents about its traffic impact on Sea Island Parkway, has been denied by the Beaufort County Zoning Board of Appeals.
But the project has sparked a broader discussion about future development of drive-thru restaurants in Beaufort County, where traffic has boomed following the pandemic, with vehicles spilling into busy roads at some locations.
The vote by the Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday was 4-2, with board members Kevin Mack, Jane Frederick, Lynne Hoos and William “Cecil” Mitchell III voting no and John Chemsak and Chester Williams backing the project.
The decision followed testimony from residents and The Sea Island Coalition and Coastal Conservation League. Both groups had rallied their members and the public against the project.
Chuck Newton, chairman of the coalition, said in a statement that the group was “ecstatic” with denial because it preserves the opportunity to plan and design traffic improvements on Lady’s Island without making traffic worse in the meantime. A penny sales tax increase OK’d in 2018 raised $30 million to address traffic problems on the island, Newton said, and approval of the drive-thru would have been a step backward.
The decision, Newton added, sends a strong signal that “if developers waltz in with plans that carry little community benefit, people will stand up and demand they pay attention to the island’s needs, not merely their own.”
The drive-thru coffee restaurant was proposed by developer Graham Trask, who was in discussions with Dunkin’ Donuts about locating at 131 Sea Island Parkway. He needed a special use permit.
He argued during several previous meetings before the board that the restaurant and drive-thru would be a new local amenity for Lady’s Island that could reduce traffic because fewer residents would leave the island for coffee.
“Obviously I was disappointed with the zoning board’s vote, and I really just need to circle up with my legal team and decide how to move forward,” Trask told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet Friday, adding he felt he met all the conditions for a special use permit.
County staff initially recommended approval but changed its position prior to Thursday’s meeting and recommend that the permit be denied, which Trask called a “flip-flop” that he found puzzling.
The recommendation was changed to a denial, County Administrator Eric Greenway said, because county planners, charged with looking at special and unique circumstances of each project, gathered additional information throughout the process. A special use permit, he added, requires a higher level of scrutiny.
Drive-thrus are getting more traffic since the COVID-19 pandemic and causing traffic and safety issues on major roads, and members of both the County Council and the Planning Commission are concerned, Greenway said.
County planners have been directed to come up with changes in how drive-thru restaurants are operated and developed, Greenway said. An amendment to county zoning rules regarding drive-thrus will be brought to the Natural Resources Committee March 7. It will require drive-thru restaurants built on major roads to have secondary access on a minor road in order to minimize traffic problems. Entries and exits at Dunkin’ Donuts would have been from the same major road, Sea Island Parkway.
“It’s a very dangerous situation,” Greenway said of the increase in the number of cars in drive-thrus backing up onto public roads. “It’s a public safety situation.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 10:02 AM.
