City OKs drivethru kiosk for The Chile Pepper
‘eyesore’ railroad property to be cleaned up, repurposed
Acknowledging that it’s not ideal and the space is tight, the Yuma Planning and Zoning Commission granted a restaurant permission to place a temporary drive-thru kiosk in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The commission on Jan. 11 unanimously approved the request by the owners of The Chile Pepper for a conditional use permit to allow the 120-square-foot structure.
Dahl, Robins and Associates, the firm that submitted the application on behalf of B&G’s Family LTD Partnership, the owners of The Chile Pepper, said the restaurant wants to place the kiosk in the Limited Commercial District on the wesTern parcel of the properties located at 1030 W. 24th St., Units A, B, C, D and G, in the 24th Street Plaza.
The city’s zoning code requires a permit for a drive-thru facility but does not have a provision for temporary structures. However, Chad Brown, the city’s associate planner, said that staff considered that the kiosk would provide an alternative dining option during the pandemic.
“The project was reviewed with consciousness of what’s going on during these hard times,” Brown said.
Staff recommended approval of the permit. “I’m going to go in agreement with what the city says,” Chairman Chris Hamel said. “While I don’t think this is a perfect scenario for a drive-thru, I agree that during these times, we need to be making some exceptions. I think the drive-thru in this area is going tight certain times of the day but not overall.
“Kudos to both the city and this business trying to adjust and work with what’s available to them to still serve the public
and also keep their business alive, which I believe is an important factor right now,” Hamel added.
The restaurant is located on two lots about 59,000 square feet. A staff report explains that the larger of the two lots, the eastern lot, received a variance to accommodate the placement of the current restaurant facility. This variance allowed the restaurant to reduce parking from 60 parking spaces to 49, with four spaces designated as employee parking. The kiosk will remove two parking spaces from the property that received a parking reduction, and two spaces from the western parcel.
The report notes that the vehicle stacking for the kiosk has the potential to significantly reduce the usability of the parking lot on-site and called for a traffic control plan to ensure consistent traffic flow through the private, internal roadways.
The kiosk will operate daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
In other action, the commission unanimously approved a request by N. Bruce Jacobson, on behalf of Palm Shadows of Yuma, for a conditional use permit to allow an industrial use within 600 feet of a residential area in the Light Industrial/Infill Overlay District. The properties are located at 1100 and 1130 S. Maple Ave.
This property has historically been used as packing facilities for citrus growers, storage and for railroad deliveries of agricultural products, lumber and fertilizers.
The property owners plan to continue railroad deliveries and storage of lumber, with the expanded storage of appliances and other building materials. The products delivered and stored on the properties will only be for the property owners, as it pertains to their construction companies, and will not be open to the public, said Erika Petersen, a city assistant planner.
The hours of operations will be from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
Currently, the properties feature several vacant metal buildings, a vacant office building at the front of the property, a vacant mobile home at the northwest corner and a single-family residence.
The buildings on the property are in failing condition, many of which will need to be demolished. Property owners intend to demolish the buildings within the next five years, according to a staff report.
In the meantime, the report explains, they are proposing to repair the largest building on the northeast side of the property and address the drainage issues and railroad track settlement on the east side of the property.
The clean up, construction of new buildings and environmental testing will be broken up into two phases, with the second phase focusing on environmental testing.
The property owners will revive and add additional landscape along East 11th Street and South Madison Avenue. In addition, the security chain-link fence surrounding the property will be repaired to provide a buffer between the neighboring residential and other industrial areas.
The project did not receive opposition from neighbors, Petersen noted.
The city had asked that all conditions be completed within a year of the permit approval or prior to the issuance of any building permit, certificate of occupancy or city business license for this property. In the event that the conditions were not completed within this time frame, the conditional use permit would have been null and void.
However, the applicant asked to be allowed two years to complete the project. Hamel asked staff for the city’s position, and Petersen said staff was not opposed.
“Personally I like that they’re repurposing this property because it’s been an eyesore for a long time,” Commission Greg Counts said.
Hamel agreed, noting that “it’s good to see” vacant buildings in some areas are being “repurposed, cleaned up.”
The commission also unanimously approved another request by Dahl, Robins and Associates, this one on behalf of Barkley Limited Partnership, for approval of the preliminary plat for the Livingston Ranch Units No. 3 and 4 Subdivision.
Plans call for dividing the 65.3-acre subdivision into 176 residential lots, ranging in size from 7,395 square feet to 19,451 square feet. The property is located near the northwest and northeast corner of 36th Street and the Avenue B½ alignment.
Alyssa Linville, assistant director of community development, explained that in these phases of development, the city will require that a municipal improvement district be established for the maintenance of required subdivision landscaping. The MID for each phase will need to be established prior to the issuance of any residential building permits.