Politics & Government

Drive-Thru Review Gets Under Way

At the request of city council, officials begin the process of identifying, studying all of the drive-thru windows in the city.

There are 31 drive-thru windows in Lakewood. Most are run by fast-food companies, but there are also drive-thru services for banks, pharmacies and the .

At the , the city’s planning and development department has begun its review of every drive-thru in Lakewood.

The idea behind the study, Anderson said, is to examine the existing zoning code — and make sure that businesses with drive-thru windows are being good neighbors.

Find out what's happening in Lakewoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

To do that, he tasked the planning department with the research.

“The goal of this review (is) to consider issues such as noise, traffic, light, trash and pedestrian safety and whether the current code address best management practices,” said Dru Siley, the city’s director of planning and development. 

Find out what's happening in Lakewoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

City employees inventoried all of the current drive-thru uses in the city and compiled a summary of the applicable language in the current zoning code, he said.

“We don’t want people to forget that there are a variety of drive-thru types,” Siley said. “We’re doing a close analysis of our zoning code to see if the regulations we have in place are the best practices." 

The findings will be presented to the Lakewood Planning Commission meeting on Aug. 4.

Anderson said recently that, with millions of new development dollars coming into the city, it only makes sense to research whether the current code is the most appropriate.

“What I could’ve done is put together an ordinance with a number of conditional-use requirements that would offer a number of things that an organization who wanted to put in a drive-in, drive-up or drive-thru in Lakewood would have to meet,” Anderson said. 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here