Neighbors to fight Twin Falls Taco Bell location at Monday appeal (2024)

TWIN FALLS — In-N-Out Burger was successful last month in its appeal to locate a restaurant with drive-thru near the Perrine Bridge. Now, neighbors against a plan to open a Taco Bell near their residential neighborhood have a chance on Monday to make their case on an appeal.

“This is such an easy decision (for the city council),” maintains Floid Gilbert, who helped organize a group of neighbors who are still fighting after the planning and zoning commission voted 5-1 in August to allow a special use permit for the Mexican restaurant’s planned drive thru, along with extended hours, at the corner of Carriage Lane and Addison Avenue.

Gilbert says the city should put a priority on preserving safe, livable spaces and needs to change its thinking about allowing the drive-thru near what he and neighbors describe as a peaceful neighborhood, and say there are far better locations for the restaurant.

The appeal will go before the city council during its 5 p.m. regular meeting Monday at city hall.

The hearing will center around the drive thru and extended hours, as the restaurant itself would be in a properly zoned location. Businesses with a drive thru are required to obtain a special use permit as well as approval of extended hours if the drive-thru will be open beyond the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Reasons for not allowing the drive-thru are plentiful, Gilbert said.

Even though the drive-thru plan calls for five vehicles in back of the menu board, he said there isn’t enough space for that many vehicles, and thinks access to the restaurant will be blocked by vehicles and traffic will ooze out into Addison Avenue, creating safety hazards.

Motorists will also be tempted to make illegal left-hand turns as they pull out of Taco Bell’s parking lot, he said.

The addition of more cars and congestion, neighbors say, will change the character of the neighborhood, making it less walkable, add noise pollution and litter, including to nearby Thomsen Park. Also, property values would plummet.

ES-O-EN Management LLC, which also owns the other Taco Bell location in northern Twin Falls, and others in Burley, Jerome, the Treasure Valley and Oregon, did not return a call from the Times-News.

Planning and zoning members during the August hearing added provisions to lessen the impact to neighbors, including increasing the height of a wall on the south end of the property to 7 feet and requiring it be made of masonry instead of wood, and mandated that the drive-thru close at 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends, when restaurant owners had planned to stay open as late as midnight on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends.

That isn’t good enough for resident Kirsten Stewart, who said Taco Bell could request a change to business hours at a later date.

Stewart recalled when she received the required letter announcing the August hearing to build a Taco Bell. She alerted neighbors and the petition was passed around. Although 78 people signed it, she said she could have gotten more.

She said Taco Bell is putting “profit over people.”

Gilbert created a Facebook group “TF Addison-Carriage Taco Bell Appeal” for neighbors to post concerns.

The planning and zoning hearing in August saw multiple people testify against the drive-thru.

Architect Julie Benintendi of BRS Architects said during the hearing that the restaurant will not be as busy as the Blue Lakes Boulevard location, and expects to handle about 500 vehicles to visit the restaurant each day but would not generate that many new vehicle trips to the location.

“Rather, it will serve a combination of vehicles already on the roads plus purpose-driven trips to the area,” the planning and zoning report said.

City planners said Addison Avenue is capable of handling extra traffic, but didn’t give specific vehicle numbers.