The Dairy Queen on Route 52 in the Town of Newburgh has been proposed to be torn down and a new building on the plus or minus acre lot would be built to be the future home of a Popeyes Chicken restaurant. The site plan appeared for its initial appearance on Thursday, August 3.
Attorney Nicholas Ward-Willis of Keane & Beane P.C. appeared before the Town of Newburgh Planning board on Thursday night on behalf of the applicant, Newburgh Chicken, LLC. Dynamic Engineering has been tasked with creation of a proposed site plan for the board’s review.
“We are proposing to construct a 2537 square foot fast food restaurant on the existing Dairy Queen. We’ll be providing 23 parking spaces, stacking lane for 12 cars. There are 24 seats inside the building,” said Ward-Willis. “We will be reorienting the building, we’re proposing to demolish the existing building. We do require a variance from the zoning board and a special permit. We need a special permit to continue the one nonconforming use to another nonconforming use.”
A nonconforming use in zoning terminology is a usage of land authorized at the time of the zoning regulations but is now no longer a permitted use. “We also need to have discussion with the ZBA and their attorney as to how they view the demolition of the existing building and constructing a new one,” said Ward-Willis.
As the current Dairy Queen site sits adjacent to Route 52 and Route 300 with them intersecting at a four way intersection, Ward-Willis said to the board that the applicant was looking to pull the building farther back from the road, widen the entrance and exit aisles and to add a turning lane heading eastbound. The turning lane would occur with the widening of South Plank Road, which is still a discussion with the New York State Department of Transportation. Other additions to the site from the board members’ perspective would be to continue the sidewalks along both roadways and to include sidewalks at the entrances.
“It [the project] does have some hurdles with respect to the zoning code and the nonconforming aspect of approval for the ZBA,” said Ward-Willis. “It’s an opportunity to take one fast food use, swap it out for another, add some improvements, both on-site and significantly at that intersection, some off-site improvements as well.”
The planning board granted approval for Planning Board Attorney Dominic Cordisco to write a referral letter to the Zoning Board of Appeals with a proxy from the applicant that would be needed for several zoning requirements on the application. Patrick Hines of MHE Engineering will also work with the applicant to send out adjoiner’s notice to the surrounding neighbors of the project.