Whether it’s chicken and waffles or coffee and croissant, should hungry St. Albertans be able to be served from the driver’s seat, wherever they are?
On Nov. 19, Coun. Sheena Hughes indicated she will bring a motion to a future council meeting that, if adopted by her peers, would call on city staff to change the zoning for 815 St. Albert Trail to allow for drive-thru restaurants.
On Oct. 15 Ray Watkins, appearing on behalf of developer Landrex, asked council to make the change as part of the Land Use Bylaw update process. He said the mixed residential/commercial development is in peril of losing three restaurant chains – Chik-Fil-A, Chipotle and Waves Coffeehouse – because drive-thrus are not permitted there currently.
The restaurants entered into agreements with the landowner under the assumption that the opposite was true, since there are so many other drive-thrus along St. Albert Trail, 25 to be exact.
"The deals are probably lost if it's gone today," the former city councillor said Oct. 15. "I'm not too sure why you would want to pass the bylaw without looking at some of these amendments first."
East Village, as the complex is referred to, is cut up in five: Two zones on the southwest abutting the Trail that host most of the commercial space, and three to the east, or the “back,” which are mostly residential. Currently, the land is regulated as one MU-2 parcel.
Watkins said if city council didn't see fit to change the MU-2 class to allow drive-thru (they didn’t), an acceptable alternative would be to have the new LUB classify the front two zones as Corridor Commercial, and leave the residential zones MU-2.
Either way, Watkins didn’t say when exactly Chik-Fil-A may land in St. Albert, only that without a drive-thru solution in place, it may fly the coop entirely.
The consensus on city council was that it would be more appropriate for the developer to submit a formal application to the city for the zoning change needed to allow drive-thrus in East Village, which a staffer pointed out was envisioned as a human-scaled, walkable neighbourhood in terms of access to commercial areas, than for them to carve out an allowance for a single development during the LUB approval process.
This would also give staff the time and resources to properly assess what impact allowing three drive-thru restaurants on that site would have.
Hughes’ motion could appear on the Dec. 17 council agenda. If it doesn’t, Santa will have come and gone before the topic returns to chambers.
