{"id":2639,"date":"2010-09-15T18:02:37","date_gmt":"2010-09-15T22:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/videos-mcdonalds-vs-foxborough-sign-variance.html"},"modified":"2010-09-15T18:02:37","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T22:02:37","slug":"videos-mcdonalds-vs-foxborough-sign-variance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/videos-mcdonalds-vs-foxborough-sign-variance.html","title":{"rendered":"Videos: McDonald’s vs. Foxborough Sign Variance"},"content":{"rendered":"The corpulent corporate giant asked for a variance, and met with\nunexpected opposition, as well as unexpected results.\nThe formal title of the item was\nVAR-2010-15 McDonald’s Corp. (4601 Foxborough Avenue),\non the agenda of\nthe Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA).\nMcDonald’s was\n“Requesting a Variance to the maximum square footage allowed for drive-thru signage.”\n\n<\/a>\nLowndes County Zoning Administrator Carmella Braswell.\n\nintroduced the case,<\/a> and\nChair Allan Strickland mentioned pictures of other fast food restaurants\nwith signs within ordinance limits.\n

\nA McDonald’s employee and his lawyer\npresented their case,\nin which we learned that\n\nMcDonald’s wants two signs for a large total variance<\/a>\nand that\n\nMcDonald’s doesn’t want to do custom signs.<\/a>\n

\nWell-known local lawyer\n\nGary Moser stepped up to\nspeak for over 200 residents of the Foxborough neighorhood<\/a>\nwho don’t want a McDonald’s at their entrance.\n\n\nHe says the issues include traffic, noise, and light, and\nfor today mostly light:\nAmbient light, late at night, 24×7, headlights.\nHe walks through\n\nthe county’s review criteria for variances.<\/a>\n

\n<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object>\n

\nRegarding county criterion C:\n

\nThe application of this ULDC to this particular piece of property would create an unnecessary hardship;\n<\/blockquote>\nMoser quotes the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals\n\n(Kellog v. K, 197 F 3rd 1116 1999)<\/a>:\n
\nWhen a landowner acquires the land with knowledge of the zoning restrictions, he cannot cry “hardship.”\n<\/blockquote>\nAmong other things, he points out that the variance would be\ngranting a special privilege as in #F), esp. given that he just\nnamed for #E a long list of other fast-food companies around town\nwho manage just fine with standard-size signs.\n

\nConcluding, Gary Moser talks about\n\neffects on adjacent property,<\/a>\ninvoking\n\ncounty review criterion #K:<\/a>\n

\nThe extension of said nonconforming use will not further injure a permitted use\non the subject property or on an adjacent property;\n<\/blockquote>\nThe Foxborough residents attest it will injure their property.\n

\nThe real surprise was the next speaker.\nWell-known local developer Gary Moser<\/strike> Minchew stood up to speak,\nagainst<\/em> the variance!\n

\n<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object>\n

\nMinchew gave an easement across his property to First State Bank,\nMcDonald’s insists on keeping it when they buy the property,\nMinchew objects to this, and to McDonald’s general attitude.\nAlso, a previous McDonald’s got rezoned by the city\nwith agreement to fenced with no access from Ashley Street,\nbut that never happened.\nMinchew even mentions that\n\nVince Schneider is deploying to Afghanistan and would like\nto come back without the neighborhood being worse.<\/a>\n

\nThe last speaker was\n\na disabled Foxborough resident who wondered how he is supposed\nto get in and out through McDonald’s traffic.<\/a>\n

\nFinally, ZBOA rendered its verdict:\n

\n<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object>\n

\nUnanimous denial of the variance.\n

\nOn the way out, the mighty back of McDonald’s can be seen bowing\nbetween Pete Candelario and Vince Schneider of Foxborough.\n

\n\n<\/a>\n

\nMore pictures in the flickr set.<\/a>\nHere’s \na playlist for all the videos about this agenda item.<\/a>\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The corpulent corporate giant asked for a variance, and met with unexpected opposition, as well as unexpected results. The formal title of the item was VAR-2010-15 McDonald’s Corp. (4601 Foxborough Avenue), on the agenda of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA). McDonald’s was “Requesting a Variance to the maximum square footage allowed for […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,321,3982,2583,21],"tags":[5447,8880,1246,8701,8702,12,7,8857,5446,6,2320,5448,4230,8826],"class_list":["post-2639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-food-and-drink","category-foxborough","category-mcdonalds","category-planning","tag-14-sep-2010","tag-foxborough","tag-gary-minchew","tag-georgia","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mcdonalds","tag-pete-candelario","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-zoning-board-of-appeals","tag-videos-by-john-s-quarterman","tag-vince-schneider","tag-zboa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Gz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}