Boca Raton planning board approves Chick‑fil‑A site plan with new operational conditions after heated debate

The Boca Raton Planning and Zoning Board voted 6–1 on June 3 to approve a site plan and variance for a Chick‑fil‑A restaurant at 1277 West Palmetto Park Road, but attached several operational and monitoring conditions after staff warned a tightly constrained site could create queuing and neighborhood impacts.

Senior planner Azen Jean told the board the project would demolish an existing ~4,302‑square‑foot bank building and replace it with an approximately 4,050‑square‑foot fast‑food restaurant with a dual‑lane ordering configuration and a bypass lane. Jean said the plan provides 20 on‑site stacking spaces (the city engineering standard requires 10), and that the applicant is requesting a technical deviation to provide 44 parking spaces where code requires 45 and a variance to reduce the required 10‑foot landscape yard along the street to 5 feet 8 inches.

The city’s traffic analysis, presented by traffic engineer Johaira Moledo, found no immediate level‑of‑service degradation at the nearby intersection under current traffic volumes; she said staff would follow up with the precise level‑of‑service figures if requested. Staff also recommended several conditions — including approved tree species lists coordinated with Palm Beach County and FPL, dynamic signage to limit on‑site stacking overflow, staged topographic surveys during construction to verify approved grades, and enforcement language allowing the city…