Planning commission approves UDO amendment to create distinct 'pickup window' category

The City of Columbia Planning Commission voted to approve a text amendment (TA2025009) to the Unified Development Ordinance that creates a new accessory-use category for pickup windows and distinguishes it from traditional drive-through facilities.

Planning staff explained the change responds to businesses that accept orders in advance — by phone or online — and then allow customers to collect goods at a window without the infrastructure, speakers, order kiosks or menu boards associated with drive-throughs. “These uses do not employ order kiosk with speakers or lighted menu boxes and do not facilitate the same level of vehicular idling as a drive through,” planning staff said when presenting the amendment.

Under the amendment, the UDO will include separate classifications for a vehicle pickup window and a pedestrian pickup window, with different conditions for each. Drive-through uses such as banks or pharmacies that rely on speaker systems will remain classified as drive-throughs and continue to be regulated under the existing drive-through standards.

Commissioners discussed whether drive-throughs required separate site-plan review and staff confirmed that drive-throughs typically must meet site-plan standards and in some districts are treated as conditional or special-exception uses, with spacing and buffering standards intended to limit impacts on nearby residences.

The commission’s approval means the new pickup-window classifications will be added to the UDO and will be permitted in the districts identified by the amendment, subject to the accessory-use conditions listed in the ordinance.