Star Buds officials have made enough changes to their plans for a new dispensary in town to earn a stamp of approval from Riverside’s planning and zoning commission.
At its Aug. 6 special meeting, the commission voted to recommend approving four petitions from Star Buds for its plans to build a 4,090-square-foot dispensary building and an adjacent 1,400-square-foot retail space. The buildings would be constructed on village land that the company is slated to purchase by next summer.
The commission first heard Star Buds’ petitions at a meeting in June but tabled its vote after the commissioners took issue with parts of the development’s design; rather than voting to recommend denying the petitions, the commissioners allowed Star Buds to address the issues before bringing its petitions back before them last week.
Riverside trustees will review the development plans in their entirety at the village board’s Aug. 15 meeting before voting to approve or deny them. The village board has the final say on the matter, regardless of whether trustees agree with the planning and zoning commission’s recommendation.
The property, located at 3320 S. Harlem Ave. and 363-369 E. Burlington St., now holds a vacant, abandoned building on the west side and an underused parking lot on the east side. If trustees approve the plan, Star Buds aims to raze the existing structure so it can build the two retail spaces on the east side of the parcel and move the parking lot to the west side.
Changes to the site plan
Of the changes made to Star Buds’ plan since the commission’s last meeting in June, one of the biggest came in the form of a new petition. Star Buds requested a larger sign than the village code allows on the new dispensary’s western side. Star Buds also requested variations for larger-than-allowed west- and south-facing signs for the tenant of the retail space, which Star Buds’ architect for the project, Brian Gould, suggested in June could be a coffee shop or bakery.
According to the request, those signs would be for Wake-N-Bakery, a Chicago-based chain selling cannabis-infused baked goods and drinks like coffee, though it also offers non-infused items. The company has five locations in Chicagoland with plans to open a sixth in Oak Park. The store’s location in Burbank is next door to a Star Buds storefront; TJ Joudeh, one of Star Buds’ owners, said at the meeting that the two companies have “minimal common ownership” but that they are not affiliated with one another.
Despite the sign request, Joudeh told commissioners he couldn’t outright confirm whether Wake-N-Bakery would be the tenant at the retail space.
“Can I sit here today and say that’s 100% going to be the business there? I can’t say that,” Joudeh said. “That’s what we are looking at, intending. We like the idea. It’s been complementary to the industry in our Burbank store.”
Another big change comes to the western face of the proposed Star Buds storefront, which would hold the store’s main entrance. Star Buds first proposed using translucent LED light panels on both the east and west sides of the building, but commissioners said they were worried about the amount of light the panels would generate toward residences on East Burlington Street and downtown Riverside.
Now, Star Buds plans to use stucco on the west face of the building, generating less light while mimicking the design of the panels on the east face.
Those LED panels should provide a “soft glow” toward Harlem, Gould said, and would be turned off within about an hour of the store’s closing each night. In Riverside, dispensaries cannot stay open past 10 p.m.
Elements that stayed the same
There are some issues commissioners took with the original plan for the dispensary that Star Buds did not address. One such issue is that the planned development is for two retail spaces, while the area’s business district is intended to attract mixed-use buildings — like a first-floor retail space underneath apartments, for example. Village Planner Anne Cyran said Star Buds is allowed “by right” to put in the two retail spaces, regardless of the intent of the district, as the zoning code does not forbid it.
Commissioners also raised concerns about the safety of the planned exit for the drive-thru, which loops around the east side of the development. In June, they had worries about the visibility of the drive-thru, namely whether pedestrians would be able to see exiting cars and vice versa. At the meeting, Cyran said a traffic engineer with Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd., Riverside’s engineering firm, had confirmed the proposed right-only exit for the drive-thru would not pose a hazard to safety or increase traffic, so Star Buds is not required to change it.
The issue of traffic
One public commenter, who lives on the 100 block of East Burlington Street, raised concerns to the commission about increased traffic on the street as a result of the new development. She said speeding cars and traffic are already issues she and her neighbors face, as East Burlington Street is one of few roads in Riverside that runs straight rather than winding through town. Other public commenters who live in the area echoed her concerns.
“I don’t want more traffic on Burlington because people are, to be frank, lazy. They are going to take the path of least resistance. They are going to go down Burlington; they are going to go down Herrick [Road] to get to the dispensary,” the resident said. “I have no problems with the dispensary. I have no problems with recreational marijuana. I have problems with traffic on my street.”
While the commissioners did not respond directly to the resident’s public comment — which is standard practice at village board and commission meetings — they did touch on the traffic issue while reviewing Riverside’s standards for granting variations from the village’s zoning codes. Variations that the commission votes to recommend must first meet all seven of the village’s standards.
While discussing whether to approve the variations — which concerned the layout of the proposed parking lot and several aspects of the building’s design — the commission considered whether granting them would be “detrimental to the public welfare or injurious to other property or improvements in the neighborhood.”
“I know that traffic was brought up a lot this evening, and I understand traffic’s always a concern when you’re proposing a commercial use, but I don’t believe this commercial use necessarily would produce more traffic than another commercial use that might use this property,” said Commissioner Theresa Pelletier, who acted as chair in the absence of Chairperson Jennifer Henaghan.
“From a legal perspective, when courts review variations, [an] increase in traffic is not usually accorded much concern,” Village Attorney Robert Pickrell said. “They know that, as you point out, any development creates traffic. Traffic is always a problem; it’s always getting worse, and to say that there’s traffic is just simply often to say there is development.”
Near the end of the meeting, the commission voted to recommend the village board approve each of Star Buds’ four petitions. One petition covered the variations from Riverside’s zoning code in the design of the proposed building and parking lot. Another petition covered the inclusion of the three signs that are too big according to the code. A third petition regarded Star Buds’ request to have a drive-thru, which is not a regularly permitted use in the property’s business district. The final petition simply asked the commission to review the proposed site plan overall, as the village code requires it.
