Last week the Lloyd Planning Board approved a proposed Dollar General Store that will be built close to Route 9W, next to Burger King, along with a 72 unit multi-family residential development that will be erected on acreage behind the Route 9W commercial structures. The entrance/exit will be off of Mile Hill Road rather than via Route 9W.

The Planning Board granted the developer, MCBS Highland LLC, a key waiver from the Walkway-Gateway District that is allowing the project to move forward. They are permitting the entrance of the Dollar General building to be situated on the side of the building facing south rather than fronting onto Route 9W, as is required in Chapter 100-26 I (4) of the town code.

This section of the code states that, “The principal pedestrian entrances for shopfront buildings with Route 9W frontage shall be from Route 9W and shall be connected to the sidewalk”

The Zoning Board of Appeals also granted an Area Variance that will allow parking on the side of the building rather than “behind, underneath or above the first floor of the building,” as per Chapter 100-26 K (1).

The Planning Board’s land use attorney Rob Stout, crafted the approval resolutions, stating that the developer has taken “significant steps,” to address the code requirements. He further asserts that the issuance of these waivers, “does not nullify, and is consistent with, the intent and purpose of the Walkway Gateway District.” He states in the Conditional Site Plan resolution that the project poses no significant adverse impacts to the environment and that the subdivision meets the requirements of the Town of Lloyd Subdivision Regulations and Zoning Code. The attorney noted that the Planning Board does have the power to allow modifications and grant waivers but fails to state that the repositioning of the building and the granting of side parking is in direct opposition to what is written in the Walkway-Gateway code.

Voting on this project was divided into two parts; on the waivers and then on the project as a whole. Board member Sal Cuciti said the waivers being granted for this project are a direct benefit to the developer.

“There are reasons for these [code] requirements and I think there is a spectrum of things you can do from nothing to quite a bit,” he said. “I wish we had a little more discussion on things that we could do on the site to offset what we weren’t accomplishing on the zoning.”

Chairman Peter Brooks said this project has been before the board for two years “and we’ve had a lot of discussion around these issues and in some ways we need to recognize that this is a river that has sort of passed by in a lot of ways, and we’ve had a lot of meaningful discussions and I think the project is a lot different than it was originally, and in that sense, better than it was originally, but it’s also a compromise.”

Board member Scott McCarthy commented that at the beginning the developer’s engineer knew that the building they were proposing was problematic and would not meet the legally required frontage.

“Even before you came to the table someone should have known or at least said, this is a building that will not maintain the law that is currently provided, so that we wouldn’t have projected having a building there that wouldn’t fit. Therefore, the waivers wouldn’t have been made and then we wouldn’t be in the predicament we’re in today,” he said.

Fellow board member Carl DiLorenzo said the waivers that presently exist in the code are what has allowed this project to reach the approval stage.

“If we don’t want this to happen again then maybe that’s what we need to address, the waivers that are in the code for the rest of the Walkway-Gateway District,” he said.

On the waiver vote, Sal Cuciti was the lone no vote but the final approval of the project was unanimous, with all Planning Board members in attendance.

Prior to the Planning Board’s detailed discussion and vote on the project, Councilwoman Claire Winslow, who is the Town Board’s liaison to the Planning Board, commented on an impromptu discussion that took place before the Planning Board that Lloyd was not a “Neiman Marcus neighborhood.”

“I really resent that; first of all I think a Neiman Marcus in this town would be just great, as opposed to a Dollar General,” she said.