Victim Of Success?

Mission Cantina, 485 West Street, South Amherst

A bit of a firefight erupted at the Zoning Board of Appeals hearing last night over a Special Permit for the wildly successful Mexican restaurant in South Amherst, Mission Cantina.  Mainly over parking.

Attorney Kristi Bodin in a memo called the proposed actions of the board "arbitrary & capricious" and capped of her verbal presentation last night by branding it "really, really disturbing."

The restaurant, she pointed out, has a seating capacity of 49 and the zoning bylaw calls for one parking spot per 4 seats so they are only required to have 12, but in fact have 26.

 Click to enlarge/read

So to require them to provide (3) additional new parking spaces when all they wanted was permission to build an 8 foot fence to shield their immediate residential neighbor and add a vestibule in the front of the building (for energy savings in the winter) was a tad maddening. 

ZBA member Tom Ehrgood, who bristled at the word "capricious," pointed out that they were also requesting a doubling of employee parking in back, and permission to park the sizable Taco Truck. 

Taco truck and employee parking in the rear

The food truck operation is what tripped Building Commissioner Rob Morra's attention.  The original Special Permit that allowed the restaurant to open has nothing in the management plan to address the operation of the food truck on site, which loads up at the restaurant in the early evening and then returns in the early morning hours.

And Mr. Morra also thought the addition of the vestibule where patrons could stand while waiting for a table increases the capacity of the building (even though seating remains at 49) thus creating a "change in use" that requires its own Special Permit.

The ZBA seemed willing to compromise and liked the idea of both the vestibule and fence but since most of them have patronized the restaurant they know first hand there's a problem at peak time with parking.

Building Commissioner Morra could not be at the meeting last night to explain his findings, so the hearing was continued until June 4.  And by the end of last night's hearing, a Mexican standoff had been avoided as they had come to mutually agreeable terms:

1) Mission Cantina would submit a revised site plan removing the "new" parking spaces and showing eight (8) employee spaces and one (1) taco truck space behind the restaurant, 2) Mission would submit a plan to delineate the edge of the parking area on the south side of the building to prevent parking on the grass or dirt next to the lot; as well as a plan to inform patrons that parking on unpaved areas was not allowed; 3) Mission would provide a change to the management plan for the taco truck revising the hours to 3 am at the latest for clean up, and 4) Mission would provide a change to the fencing material from stockade fencing to some type of solid panel.

Red box indicates where 3 "new" parking spaces would have been located.  

 Business neighbor to north not interested in leasing out parking spaces