Zoning board continues hearing on proposed Route 12 drive‑through; traffic study required

At a special meeting on March 3, the Swansea Zoning Board continued the public hearing on the special‑exception application for a drive‑through restaurant at the intersection of Marcy Hill Road and Route 12.

The application (identified in the hearing record as EBA 205‑002) was presented by Mark Roder, a professional engineer with Civil Horse New England, on behalf of owners Steven and Lani Giordano. Roder said the applicants are currently marketing the site generically as a restaurant use — likely a coffee‑shop style tenant — but that no tenant lease is yet signed. He described plans for a building with interior seating and two drive‑through windows, a dedicated drive‑through lane and a separate bypass lane for vehicles entering the parking area. Roder told the board that the site is entirely within the town’s business district and that the nearest residential zoning begins a few hundred feet away.

The applicant corrected a prior materials detail during the presentation: the town’s drive‑through regulation requires stacking for eight 20‑foot vehicles, not nine as was previously stated. The site plan shown to the board calls for 12‑foot lane widths and two drive‑through windows; Roder said the design avoids blocking parking spaces and provides more stacking capacity on site than an existing Dunkin’ Donuts in town.

Board members and members of the public pressed the applicants on traffic and safety. Joe D’Russell, the town’s public works director, said he is concerned that drive‑through stacking or other queuing could back up onto Marcy Hill Road and Route 12; several board members said they want an independent traffic study to quantify any traffic or queuing impacts. Roder said he expected to request proposals for a traffic study within days and that a realistic completion date could be by the end of the month; he also said the planning board had required a traffic study as part of its site‑plan review and that the planning board will continue its review until that study is complete.

Roder said the applicants sought “conceptual approval” from New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT) District 4 for an exit driveway onto Route 12; he described that as NHDOT’s early review of driveway geometry and location and said it is subject to formal DOT driveway permitting. The board and public asked whether the proposed Exit onto Route 12 would cross wetlands; the applicant acknowledged there are wetland limits in the broader parcel and said any crossing would be reviewed through the state wetlands permitting process if required.

Given the outstanding traffic study and the planning‑board site‑plan requirement, the applicants asked the zoning board to continue the hearing. The zoning board agreed to continue the public hearing to the board’s March 17 meeting and also recorded the applicants’ agreement to extend the board’s statutory review timeline beyond 90 days, if necessary, to allow the materials (including the traffic study) to be completed and reviewed.

The board’s action was procedural: the hearing remains open for public comment and for the submission of the traffic study. The planning board will separately complete site‑plan review after the traffic study is filed; the zoning board said any conditions it imposes could be made subject to planning‑board review and state permitting.

The applicants and staff were directed to provide the traffic study to the planning board and to the zoning board before the continued hearing. No final decision on the special exception was made at the March 3 meeting; the hearing was continued by unanimous voice vote.

Why it matters: the board’s decision to continue preserved the applicants’ ability to pursue tenants while ensuring the planning board and zoning board receive an independent traffic analysis before final approvals. The traffic study will be central to the board’s later determination of whether the drive‑through use would create a nuisance or safety hazard on Marcy Hill Road or Route 12.

What’s next: the public hearing is continued to the March 17 zoning board meeting; the applicant agreed to extend the board’s 90‑day review period as recorded in the minutes.