Tie vote on zone change request for Taco Bell Cantina

VILLAGE OF MANLIUS – On Dec. 12, four of the five members of the Village of Manlius Board of Trustees voted on a zone change request application submitted for the former fire station property at 2-4 Stickley Dr. that would allow the property to be rezoned from Municipal Service to Commercial 1 (C1).
The applicant, Hospitality Restaurant Group, has requested C1 zoning to accommodate a proposed Taco Bell Cantina restaurant that would incorporate both sit-down dining and a drive-through.
Two board members voted in favor of the requested zone change and two members voted against it. Trustee Janice Abdo-Rott was not present. Because the vote was a tie, the application was not approved.
The two-story fire station building has been vacant since 2017. For many years, the property was owned and operated by the village and zoned as municipal.
After it was sold four years ago to David and Louis Muraco, of Empire Management of CNY, Inc., no formal process was carried out to change its zoning. Therefore, the village board must take legal action to establish a zone for the now-private property. The board was tasked with determining whether the property would be more appropriately zoned as C1 or Commercial (C).
As the village law currently stands, C does not allow drive-through service at restaurants. In a C1 zone, drive-throughs are allowed upon the issuance of a special use permit.
Hospitality Restaurant Group initially submitted a C1 zone change application that proposed demolishing the fire station and constructing a typical-style drive-through Taco Bell. In response to feedback from the board of trustees, the Village of Manlius Planning Board, Onondaga County, and the public, however, the applicant made significant changes to its original proposal.
The revised application, which was voted on at the Dec. 12 meeting, still calls for C1 zoning but proposes upgrading the interior and exterior of the existing building rather than tearing it down.
Before voting on the application, the board held a public hearing regarding the zone change request.
The applicant was represented by Matt Napierala, P.E., of Napierala Consulting; Mike McCracken, director of asset development with Hospitality Restaurant Group; and the Muracos.
In an introduction to the proposed plan, Napierala stated that the fire station property, which is located behind the Chase Bank and in front of the Village of Manlius Recreation Building on Stickley Drive, abuts a C1-zoned property, the Manlius Mart Plaza, to the south.
He explained that the Taco Bell Cantina concept includes a sit-down restaurant on the first floor that would offer a slightly different menu than a typical Taco Bell, plus alcoholic beverages. The first-floor space would also allow for large-screen TVs and a stage for live entertainment.
The upstairs is suitable for multiple uses.
In acknowledgment of the building’s original use, the applicant has proposed a memorial wall featuring photos of the fire department.
According to Napierala, the drive-through entry would be on the west side of the building, the order board would be on the south side, and the pick-up window would be on the east side, between the restaurant building and the Chase Bank.
That layout would keep the drive-through queue in the rear of the building, hidden from passersby on Stickley Drive and Fayette Street.
The site could accommodate more than 20 cars in the drive-through queue, according to Napierala, who also noted that the average lunchtime queue length for a Taco Bell is six to eight cars.
“We are really going to take that fire station building [and] clean it up, repoint the bricks, and take the overhead doors of the old fire station and rework those with some big bay windows and entry points,” Napierala said. “There will be a sit-down area out front.”
The applicant also recently proposed extending the sidewalks on Fayette Street all the way down Stickley Drive to the ball fields.
“So, if you wanted to traverse back and forth from Fayette to the ball fields, you’ve got a safe path,” said McCracken. “You [no] longer have to walk in the street,”
Following the plan overview, Mayor Paul Whorrall thanked the applicant for listening to the village’s concerns and coming back with a plan that utilizes the existing building, and for making the late addition of the sidewalk along Stickley Drive.
No public comments were made during the official public hearing.
After the hearing was closed, Deputy Mayor/Trustee Hank Chapman said he believes the revised application is a great improvement over the original proposal, and it includes some great aspects. He added that he has nothing against Taco Bell and has had a positive experience working with all the parties involved with the application.
He then said that the one thing he keeps going back to is that, although the parcel is adjacent to a C1 property, there are no other standalone buildings in the village that are zoned C1.
“In that respect, we’d be making an exception to past practice if we were to make this a C1 zone,” he said. “To me, that’s a jump that I don’t know that I want to go through. I also think that it opens up the door to other commercial properties that we have in the village, some vacant, that are adjacent to C1 properties that would then, rightfully, come to us and say, ‘You changed [the zone] to C1 for that; why wouldn’t you change to C1 for us?’ [It could] open up the door to more fast-food drive-throughs, which is something that the village has been against for a number of years.”
Chapman concluded by saying he was sure that if the village board ended up approving the application, the planning board would do a good job working with the applicant to make sure the project met all standards.
Trustee Tom Pilewski then made a motion to approve the zone change request, which was seconded by the mayor.
Chapman and Trustee Rob Oley voted against the proposal.
After the vote, Whorrall said he would hate to see something else happen to the firehouse that is not favorable to the village.
He also stated that at its last meeting, the planning board was in favor (3 to 1) of rezoning the property as C1.
“I’m going to stand by the planning board because they were in favor of this, and I think that the project is needed,” he said. “We need projects like this in the village, and we don’t have them.”
Later in the meeting, he said he was saddened by the result of the vote because it would be a great addition to the village, and he thinks a couple of people are looking at the situation the wrong way.
Pilewski agreed with the mayor and said he thinks the proposed project is terrific.
“To think that this is going to open up floodgates for everybody to say, ‘I want a drive-through for my business because you guys let that go,’ [is] crazy,” he said.
He also thanked the Muracos — who have been paying taxes on the property but have been unable to do anything with it — for their patience over the past four years.
When explaining his voting decision, Oley stated that there are very few differences between C and C1, and he expressed that he did not think that zoning the fire station property as C1 would be consistent with the current zoning map.
“Most of the shopping plazas are C1,” he said.
He also said he didn’t think it would be worth it to make “an exception” that would bring a drive-through into the village.
In response, McCracken stated that the plan was to make the firehouse a multi-use building that would fall more in line with a plaza or any other type of building with multiple tenants.
“The plaza is all connected,” he said. “It could very well be one building, but there are multiple tenants, so [this is] very much the same on a smaller scale. It’s not out of that character.”
After the vote, Town of Manlius resident Jodi Hearn spoke up to express her view that the proposed project is “way past due.”
She said she frequents all the local restaurants and thinks that having a spot close by where she could take her kids to eat and enjoy outdoor seating would be ideal.
She also pointed out that with the firehouse vacant, one of the first things people see as they enter the village is an empty building.
“[If] you see a building that’s new and refreshed, I think people would love it,” she said. “I know a lot of people that are interested and happy to see something new and exciting happening . . .”
Additionally, Hearn said she didn’t think the drive-through would be an issue because most people would prefer to sit down and enjoy the indoor and outdoor spaces.
Another community member, Jerry Menter, urged the board to reconsider the village’s longstanding resistance to drive-throughs. He asked the board to remember how important drive-throughs were during the COVID-19 pandemic and to consider their commercial importance to certain projects.
Menter also pointed out that even if a property gets zoned as C1, a drive-through is not automatically allowed; the applicant must still acquire a special use permit, which requires a very worthwhile site plan.
Regarding what would happen next with the current application, Village Attorney Ted Spencer first explained that the motion did not pass because of the tie vote and then said the board has the option to “re-entertain” the application once all members are present.
David Muraco inquired whether applying to the village board for a zone change to a Planned Unit Development (PUD) district would be an option for the property if the applicant proposed building apartments on the second floor and a drive-through Taco Bell downstairs.
He acknowledged that because the property is one acre and the village code states that no area of less than three contiguous acres may be zoned as PUD, an exception would be required.
Codes/Zoning Official Mike Decker responded that PUD zoning is “a possibility” because the village zoning regulations specify that the acreage requirement can be waived under certain circumstances.
He added that if the village board were to establish the PUD zoning, the applicant would still require a special use permit from the village board for a drive-through.
Muraco concluded the discussion by stating that he did not want any change to be made to the property’s zoning until he could discuss the situation with his attorney.
“I don’t want zoning put on this property yet because it wasn’t zoned when it was sold to me,” Muraco said. “. . . I’d just kind of like to leave it right now in limbo until I have counsel.”
Whorrall responded that nothing would be done until the property owners got back to the board.
In other news
On Dec. 13, Village of Manlius Clerk-Deputy Treasurer Lisa Baker reported that the mayor attended the “Christmas at Lorenzo: The Twelve Days of Christmas” event in Cazenovia to view the decorated mansion, and he was honored to see that the “Seven Swans a Swimming”-themed room was dedicated to Manlius’ swans Manny and Faye.
Manlius Village Board meetings begin at 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of every month in the Manlius Village Centre Board Room, 1 Arkie Albanese Avenue, Manlius.