Permit need for new bank drive-thrus in Queen Creek may be eliminated

Queen Creek soon may do away with language in its town code requiring standalone banks to obtain conditional-use permits to operate drive-thru teller lanes.

“We’ve never had an issue with banks. Is this just one more step that somebody has to go through, one more kind of bureaucratic tape that somebody has to cut through to get approval? And in this particular case, it kind of is,” Erik Swanson, the town’s planning administrator, told the Queen Creek Planning & Zoning Commission during its July 23 meeting.

The commission voted 6-0 to recommend to the Queen Creek Town Council remove the conditional-use permit requirement for standalone bank drive-thrus. Commission Chairman David Gillette was not present at the meeting.

Council will take up the issue during its Wednesday, Aug. 6 meeting.

Currently, conditional-use permits are also required for all fuel stations and car washes.
The conditional-use permit process requires a site plan, neighborhood meeting, planning commission recommendation, and, finally, town council approval.

Earlier this month, council approved First Credit Union’s request for a site plan and a conditional-use permit for drive-thru teller lanes.

The First Credit Union will be located near the southeast corner of Signal Butte and Queen Creek roads. The site plan calls for a 3,541-square-foot office with three drive-thru teller lanes and a walk-up ATM.

The credit union will be built 250 feet east from the southeast corner of Signal Butte and Queen Creek roads within the Madera Retail Commercial Center.

“In the past six to 12 months, we’ve had a handful of these applications come through with no opposition, no stated concerns, no impact to the surrounding community,” Swanson said. “And we actually just had one go through the last month. And as that went through, we started thinking, is this necessary?”

Swanson said a standalone bank, regardless of whether it is in the middle of a commercial center’s parking lot or at its farthest end, would not require a conditional-use permit for its drive-thru tellers lanes.

“Where we would still require a conditional-use permit is if you have a standalone ATM with a drive-thru lane because then we want to look at impacts,” Swanson said. “Are there things to the circulation and things like that that we need to evaluate?”

In 2019, the town council approved striking the requirement for conditional-use permits for all restaurant drive-thrus within commercial centers.

“The thought was that these were natural locations, and it was expected that drive-thrus were to be anticipated in commercial centers,” the report continued. “Due to some issues that arose as a result of the amendment, another text amendment was proposed and approved in 2021 continuing the administrative review and approval of restaurants with drive-thru uses.”

Under new language, to get a conditional-use permit a restaurant’s drive-thrus lanes must be 1,200 feet from any residential district and cannot operate between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

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