Milton planners to make McDonald’s decision in April

Milton Planning and Zoning Commission is expected to vote on the preliminary site plans for a proposed McDonald’s restaurant at the corner of Route 16 and Union Street Extended at its Tuesday, April 18 meeting. 

The commission decided March 21 to table the application to allow for a series of conditions to be worked out, but at the same time closed the public hearing period. By code, once the commission closes a public hearing, it has to make a decision within 30 days.

While the exact conditions the commission will debate still need to be hashed out, several will center around access to the restaurant and the ability of cars to maneuver around the site.

McDonald’s has proposed a 4,000-square-foot restaurant with two-drive-thru lanes located within the Food Lion shopping center. The restaurant would comprise 60 seats, 39 angled parking spaces, drive-thru windows, landscaping, lighting and other improvements, and would operate from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days per week. McDonald’s is planning to use the existing shopping center          entrances and exits to let customers access the restaurant.

The application was tabled twice before, in January and February, to allow McDonald’s to make changes to the site plan, most of which relate to traffic issues. 

In the most recent iteration shown March 21, McDonald’s engineer Steve Fortunato said the building has been slightly reoriented to allow for a number of new traffic features, most notably to line up the proposed McDonald’s entrance with the existing shopping center drive aisles. The new plans also include parking spaces for mobile ordering, drive-thru pickup spaces and bike racks.

One of the major questions from the public and the commission is about the effect the McDonald’s will have on the already-busy intersection of Union Street Extended and Route 16. The McDonald’s site was included in Delaware Department of Transportation studies related to a proposed Royal Farms on the other side of Union Street Extended. Built into the Royal Farms project is the addition of turn lanes and other road improvements, at Royal Farms’ expense. 

Fortunato said the DelDOT study found that McDonald’s is above the threshold for having to put in any road improvements, and the effect on traffic at the intersection of Route 16 and Union Street Extended is about a one-second delay. Fortunato has said McDonald’s did research that found the Milton restaurant would generate about 700 trips per day at the busiest of times.

Commissioner George Cardwell said whether Royal Farms ends up putting in those improvements or not, “At some point, enough is enough at that intersection.”

While the traffic on the main roads has been a question throughout the commission’s deliberations on the McDonald’s site plan, Chair Richard Trask said ultimately, there is very little the town can do to influence traffic on Route 16 and Union Street Extended, since those roads are controlled and maintained by DelDOT. But, he said, what the commission could focus on is the movements of traffic within the shopping center, and this became where most of the conditions will come from.

Cardwell asked Fortunato about emergency vehicle access to the site. Fortunato said the roadways around the site are big enough to accommodate large trucks such as fire engines and delivery trucks.

One concern mentioned by the commissioners involved truckers who use the shopping center parking lot, which is rarely full, as a place to pull in and sleep. The commission’s concern is that vehicles will now be using the shopping center’s drive aisles to get to McDonald’s, and trucks parked there could represent a safety hazard. 

The March 21 meeting was the general public’s final opportunity to weigh in on the project, and many attendees did voice their opinions, with several speaking more than once. The general consensus was that while most did not mind McDonald’s, they did not like it at that location, considering the traffic issues that would likely result. 

Bruce Elliott of Mill Street said McDonald’s could be a lot more creative in its design for the project.

Joan Hess of Heritage Creek asked, “How did we get this far?” 

Debbie Porth of West Shore Drive said she had a petition with 400 signatures in opposition to the proposed McDonald’s and wanted the commission to wait until the DelDOT traffic studies for the proposed Royal Farms site were complete. She said a McDonald’s at that site would generate an even larger amount of traffic at an already busy intersection. 

For the commission, the next step will be for Town Solicitor Seth Thompson to shape the commission’s comments into a series of conditions, which the commission will debate, and then decide on whether to move forward with approving the preliminary site plans. If approval is granted, McDonald’s would begin finalizing its drawings, and getting approvals from state and county agencies before returning to the town for final approval.