DHA Presents Results of Chick-Fil-A Survey

While no new plans have been presented for Chick-Fil-A’s proposed restaurant at Dunwoody Club Drive and Mt. Vernon Road. However, it was the main topic of conversation Sunday night at the Dunwoody Homeowners Association meeting.

Sunday, the DHA presented the results of an online poll of its members regarding Chick-Fil-A issue.

Last fall, the restaurant chain began eyeing a corner parcel at Mount Vernon Road and Dunwoody Club Drive intersection, once home to a Blockbuster video store. But in order to allow a drive-through restaurant at that spot, the city would have to rezone the 0.77-acre parcel from 'neighborhood shopping' to 'commercial.'

In order for the company’s design plan to work, it would have to be granted several variances by the city of Dunwoody, including variances on parking (19 instead of the required 57) and landscape buffers around the border of the parcel (buffers of two and four feet instead of the required 15 feet), along with shorter setbacks.

The DHA Board voted to reject the company’s zoning application in December (the DHA makes non-binding recommendations, which are sent to the city).

Chick-Fil-A decided to rework its plans, delaying meetings with the city until it could come up with a plan more fit to the liking of DHA members.

In the meantime, the DHA conducted a survey of its members regarding the Chick-Fil-A application and variance and zoning requests.

About 20 percent of the DHA’s membership responded to the online poll; 310 surveys were completed.

The result was that almost 70 percent of respondents are in favor of Chick-Fil-A building at the location with a drive through, while about 10 percent said they’d like to see Chick-Fil-A, but without a drive through.

As for parking, those surveyed weren’t as enthusiastic.

The restaurant would ask for variances that would decrease the necessary setback from the streets, decrease required landscaping and cut the parking requirements by 70 percent from 57 total spaces to 19.

Thirty-five percent of people supported the variances, while nearly 38 percent said they’d like to see the restaurant conform to parking and landscaping standards set by the city.

Looking at the survey data, Grossman said that one interesting issue was that none of the homeowners that responded and live within 500 yards of the proposed site – there were nine such responses – supported the plan.

Chick-Fil-A, after not getting the support of the DHA regarding the plan, asked for a delay on presenting plans to the Dunwoody Community Council in December.

"We have now retained legal counsel today and we'd like some additional time to consult with him on this matter as well as have additional conversations with the city and the Dunwoody Homeowners Association to reach some kind of solution on what we all can agree upon on that site," said Getra Thomason, senior development manager with Chick-Fil-A, at that December meeting.

Grossman said Sunday that the issue should be coming back in the next few months.

“It will be at earliest next month before Chick-Fil-A comes back and tells us anything,” he said. 

Grossman also said that in both the comments and the survey, people asked that the DHA do more polls of its membership.

"We got lots of comments from people who said, 'I never have time to attend the meetings, but I don want to give some input and this is a good way to do it,'" Grossman said Sunday. 

The last question on the survey asked whether respondents thought it was a good idea to poll the membership. 96.4 percent responded yes.