Policy: Anatomy of a Drive-Thru
Policy: Anatomy of a Drive-Thru
A proposed Chick-fil-A meets resistance, and not for the reasons you may think
Note: the author is the former chair of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Planning Commission, and was deeply involved in the development of the City of Charlotte’s Comprehensive Plan, Transit Oriented Development Ordinance, and Unified Development Ordinance.
A proposal for a new Chick-fil-A drive-thru in Cotswold was not well received by the Charlotte City Council and urban activists during Monday night’s required public hearing.
The issues surrounding the restaurant’s drive-thrus in Charlotte aren’t new. Queues extend onto arterial roads, blocking commuters and exacerbating congestion. Teenagers serve as traffic cops. Exhaust fills the air as our neighbors get in position for chicken. The Chick-fil-A on Randolph Road in Cotswold is in a five-lane, 40 mph speed limit zone, and traffic often backs up out into the street.
In order to solve the traffic jam, Chick-fil-A has filed a rezoning petition with the City of Charlotte for a drive-thru-only restaurant that would replace the current Cotswold Chick-fil-A with more, better designed drive-thru lanes and a bigger, more efficient kitchen. The Charlotte City Council previously approved a rezoning about a mile away for a “reliever” Chick-fil-A on Wendover Road near Grier Heights.
Supporters of the proposal stress that the operator of the existing restaurant has been there for over two decades, giving back to the community, employing 140 people, and sponsoring local charity efforts. However, at Monday’s City Council Zoning Meeting, opponents of Charlotte’s car culture spoke loudly against the rezoning.
So why do activists in Charlotte care so much about drive-thrus? It’s a tale of urban planning, pedestrians, climate change, and so much more.
How Rezoning Works in Charlotte
Charlotte is a growing city, and the Planning, Design, and Development department of the City approves over 200 rezoning petitions every year. These petitions change the land use of an existing parcel or parcels of land, and the 200 number doesn’t count construction that can be done by right; that is, without a petition. Chick-fil-A’s petition was the 232nd out of a total of 285 filed in 2021.
While it’s a little more complicated than this, think of rezoning this way: if I own a couple houses on a street and I want to tear them down and build an apartment building with ground-floor retail spaces, I probably need a rezoning. If I want to improve the houses, or knock them down and build a similar number of houses, I probably don’t need a rezoning. Finally, if I want to knock down the houses and build a truck stop or commercial skyscraper, I definitely need a rezoning.
Zoning laws are different from city to city in North Carolina with some of the same fundamental rules. For example, the Town of Davidson prohibits all drive-thru uses, while Charlotte is about to prohibit them in many, but not all, zoning designations. When zoning laws change, existing uses - including drive-thrus - are almost always grandfathered in.
Why Does Replacing a Drive Thru with a Drive Thru Require a Rezoning?
Over the past seven years, the City of Charlotte has completely overhauled its land use and zoning regulations for the first time in over a generation. City government has developed and adopted the Charlotte Future 2040 Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan), a new Transit Oriented Development ordinance (TOD), and a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) among others. The overall effect of these changes is a city development code that is still car-centric, but less so than in previous years.
As part of the comprehensive planning process, the City developed a policy map that outlines the uses we want in different parts of town. The 2040 Policy Map recommends the “Neighborhood Center” designation for the site of the Cotswold Chick-fil-A, a designation that prohibits drive-thru-only establishments. Charlotte’s planning staff, however, recommended approval of the project despite it being inconsistent with the Policy Map.
John Carmichael, the lawyer representing Chick-fil-A at the public hearing, said the petition was filed before the new UDO takes effect next year because Chick-fil-A may not be able to meet some of the conditions of the new UDO, but stressed that the fundamental policy implications will be the same. “This is an existing use. We’re not coming here tonight with a site that’s not developed,” and noted the majority of the restaurant’s business comes from drive-thru sales.
Carmichael also took issue with the idea that the restaurant wasn’t pedestrian friendly as it has a walk-up window. However, he undermined one of the key arguments for the rezoning in his testimony when he said, “I can’t look you in the eye and tell you there won’t be any queuing of cars on Randolph Road, because there likely will be.”
Chick-Delays
Opponents of the plan agreed the new rezoning will cause more traffic and explained how adding car-centric uses exacerbates climate change. It’s important to note land use decisions are made without considering who owns or occupies a parcel, so Chick-fil-A’s record on LGBTQ rights is not germane to the discussion.
In a letter to city council read at the meeting, local cycling advocate - and former Chick-fil-A employee - John Holmes described moments when he was almost run over while working at Chick-fil-A, and brought up the concept of induced demand:
While Chick-Fil-A will stress that this rezoning to drive-thru only is going to alleviate traffic, this is a false notion. The business model inherently strives to gather more and more customers, and subsequently suffers from the urban planning phenomenon known as “induced demand” - the more lanes that a Chick-Fil-A builds to take on traffic, the more traffic is subsequently experienced.
Holmes seemed happy with the outcome of the hearing, tweeting:
Another speaker, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools teacher Ry Elkins, talked about how commuting by bike has been liberating even if drive-thrus won’t serve him, and despite being hit by a car in a protected bike lane.
“Charlotte is a city which, since the mid-twentieth century, has been built for and only for people in cars. In the last decade or so, we’ve made great strides to change that, [by] slightly increasing our core density,” said Elkins. “Being a regular pedestrian or cyclist in this city are both incredibly dangerous.”
Elkins concluded by arguing approving drive-thru-only projects will continue to make Charlotte a “car-required city.”
The Cost of Doing Business
In controversial rezoning cases petitioners often pledge money to the City for improvements. The Chick-fil-A petition is no different, with the company offering $70,000 to the Charlotte Department of Transportation for traffic improvements. Unfortunately, that pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to build a proposed traffic signal to make the area around the restaura\nt safer.
Contributions like this are typically negotiated by staff prior to the public hearing before City Council, and in my experience voluntary contributions typically go to streets, sidewalks, and traffic improvements. Less often, there are monetary and land contributions for schools, parks, and other public facilities.
The benefit of these voluntary contributions is clear: a growing city needs infrastructure. However, they present a moral hazard to members of staff and council since the contributions are often a part of rezonings where developers and petitioners want a use that goes against the city’s plan and values, including promises to combat climate change and make Charlotte safer for pedestrians.
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
During the hour-long public hearing, Charlotte City Councilmembers Dimple Ajmera, LaWana Mayfield, and Mayor Pro Tem Braxton Winston brought up issues with the rezoning including safety and induced demand. Except for District 6 Councilmember Tariq Bokhari, who represents Cotswold, every member of the council who spoke up either opposed the proposal in its current form, or expressed serious reservations.
The argument over the rezoning is a microcosm of planning issues facing Charlotte going forward: Do we stay true to our values, or bend the rules when it’s convenient? It will be interesting to see which path the Charlotte City Council takes when the outcome of Chick-fil-A’s petition is decided in the coming weeks.