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County staff recommend lifting a 1999 ban on new drive‑in restaurants on parts of Hesperia Boulevard for conditional review
Summary
County planning staff proposed replacing a blanket prohibition enacted in 1999 with a conditional‑use review for new drive‑in restaurants on commercial parcels along Hesperia Boulevard outside downtown San Lorenzo; property owners and franchise operators urged the change while some residents cautioned about community character.
County planning staff on Sept. 25 proposed revising a 1999 unincorporated‑area policy that bans new drive‑in restaurants on parts of Hesperia Boulevard between Hayward and San Leandro. Rodrigo Orduna, deputy planning director, said staff recommend removing the corridor‑wide prohibition for that stretch and allowing new drive‑in uses to be considered through the county’s conditional‑use permit (CUP) process with additional safeguards.
Orduna said the proposed change would apply only to commercially zoned parcels outside the Downtown San Lorenzo specific‑plan area and would not guarantee approval for any specific application. "What it does mean is that the... additional scrutiny with a conditional use permit to review drive‑in businesses would then take effect as opposed to a flat prohibition," Orduna said, listing possible CUP requirements such as spacing between drive‑through lanes, limits on hours and loudspeakers, lighting controls and trash management.
Property owner Elaine Ham described repeated unsuccessful attempts to sell or redevelop a vacant parcel at 18600 Hesperia Boulevard since 2009, saying potential buyers frequently sought drive‑through uses but the current policy discouraged them. "This policy really hurt me... financially," Ham said, asking the county to consider the parcel’s redevelopment prospects.
Representatives of restaurant operators, including Henry Grieve of Diversified Restaurant Group, urged the change as a way to attract investment and jobs; Grieve said seven drive‑through restaurants already exist along the corridor and that operators have been seeking development opportunities there.
Some residents urged caution. A San Lorenzo resident said the corridor already includes numerous drive‑throughs and other uses and asked the county to retain design and multimodal access standards to protect pedestrian and transit options. Supervisors and staff agreed the change would go through Eden Municipal Advisory Council (Eden MAC), planning commission and the transportation planning subcommittee before returning to the Board of Supervisors for a policy modification.
Staff emphasized that removal of the ban would not create automatic approvals; any drive‑in would still require a CUP and site‑specific findings and conditions.
