Drive-Thru Zoning Changes OK’d by City Council

City officials don’t want to keep drive-thrus out of Lakewood, but an ordinance passed by Lakewood City Council on Tuesday will limit them in the city.

The ordinance, inspired by the , will set the standard for future drive-thru plans in Lakewood.

This isn’t the first time the issue has come up at .

Last month, the OK’d the after Ward 1 councilman David Anderson first introduced the idea in July.

“This is about six months in the works,” he said on Tuesday. “I’ve heard from many residents about the impacts of drive-thrus on neighborhoods. My reaction was ‘how many is too many?’”

“This is a big step in the right direction.”

But for those seeking to halt the McDonald's plans on the site of the Detroit Theatre, it's too late.

The 31 drive-thru windows currently operating in the city — as well as the proposed McDonald’s at the location of the former  — will not be affected by any changes to the code.

In July, at the urging of Anderson, the city’s planning and development department conducted a review of every drive-thru in Lakewood and compiled a summary of the applicable language in the current zoning code.

City was to consider issues such as noise, traffic, light, trash and pedestrian safety. 

“If you’re going to have a drive thru in Lakewood it has to fit,” said Dru Siley, the city’s director of planning and development. “And most importantly, it has to be mindful of our residential neighborhoods.”

Among the proposed changes are new standards that include:

• Requiring business with drive-thru windows to conduct traffic studies.
• To install point-of-service speakers more than 50 feet away from the foundation of residential property — a break in the original plan that called for the drive-thru to be 50 feet away from the property line.
• No drive-thru in the city could operate between midnight and 6 a.m. — and no drive-thru adjacent to a residentially zoned area shall operate between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. However, there may be exceptions.
• Use of sound attenuation walls and landscaping would be encouraged.

Limits on the lane itself, including that each stacking space must be at least 20 feet and the drive-thru lane must be separated from the parking lot with a striped line.

After to plant the on the former Detroit Theatre property in April, have turned to to voice their concerns.

“The challenge is always balancing our long commercial corridors with residential neighborhood,” said Siley.