Prosper commission grants Chick‑fil‑A drive‑thru special use permit 7‑0, requiring enhanced landscaping to screen lanes

The Prosper Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously (7‑0) to approve a specific‑use permit (SUP) allowing a drive‑through restaurant — a proposed Chick‑fil‑A — at the Frontier Retail Center (Revised Block A, Lots 1 and 2; 2.8 acres), despite staff's recommendation to deny the SUP for noncompliance with a 2024 zoning amendment that generally prohibits drive‑through stacking between a building and an adjacent right‑of‑way.

Staff had recommended denial because the submitted layout places drive‑through stacking lanes between the building and North Dallas Parkway; a town amendment adopted Jan. 9, 2024, includes a provision discouraging that configuration. The applicant sought an SUP to allow the alternative layout. The commission approved the SUP with a specific condition that the enhanced landscaping and facade treatments the applicant presented at the meeting be treated as the minimum required screening and be maintained, and the approval will be transmitted to Town Council on March 25 for final action.

Priya Acharya of Weir and Associates, the project civil engineer, told the commission the site plan provides a continuous bypass lane, two points of entry tied to the larger shopping‑center drive aisles, and stacking sufficient to the order point. Acharya noted the plan provides 14 vehicle stacking spaces from the isolated entry to the first menu board, exceeding the zoning ordinance's five‑vehicle minimum to the order point. Her presentation also emphasized enhanced facade articulation facing North Dallas Parkway and landscaping that includes six‑foot evergreen shrubs at planting to screen vehicles along the parkway.

Matt Moore, representing the property owner D and T Frontier LP and the shopping‑center master developer, told commissioners that H‑E‑B — the adjacent grocery anchor — required the submitted orientation of the pad site and that the applicant had coordinated the layout to avoid creating congestion at the public driveways off North Dallas Parkway. Moore said the shopping‑center owner and H‑E‑B signed off on the submitted layout.

Town staff and legal counsel clarified that final site plan review remains required and that conditions must be specific and enforceable. Several commissioners said the enhanced landscaping shown in the applicant's presentation satisfied the ordinance's intent — to prevent visible stacking adjacent to the right‑of‑way — and argued that the detailed landscape and facade work presented at the hearing made the SUP acceptable in this location. Commissioners also asked that the applicant's presentation materials and the landscape plan be incorporated into the SUP as a baseline requirement; the motion adopted by the commission reflects that request and requires maintenance of the screening as part of the approval.

Key technical details presented at the hearing include the proposed building size (approximately 5,385 square feet), a patio of roughly 437 square feet, the site area (about 2.8 acres), provided parking of 73 spaces versus an ordinance‑required 57 for the use as drawn, and the stacking plan providing 14 vehicles upstream of the menu board where the ordinance requires five.

The commission's approval was moved and seconded on the floor; the motion passed 7‑0. The item will proceed to Town Council on March 25.