White Dog Zoning Appeal for 50 More Seats--ZHB on Thursday, June 16th at 7:30 PM

The continuation of White Dog’s (“WD”) zoning appeal to add 50 seats of outdoor dining with NO additional off-street parking spaces will be heard at the ZHB this Thursday, June 16th, at 7:30 PM at the Township building on Iven Avenue. 

If you are concerned about the potential loss of resident’s generally unrestricted right to park in front of their own homes, please attend this important meeting.  Currently, WD is the 2nd item on the agenda, but sometimes the agenda order changes (like at the May meeting when WD was moved from the 3rd to the 1st item).

Please know that any Radnor Township resident has the right to make a statement before the ZHB and that the Board has the right to limit non-relevant and repetitive statements.

Although WD is now stating that outdoor dining will only be provided on weekdays beginning at 5:30 PM with expanded hours on weekends, based on the legal argument in their appeal, if successful, WD might have the basis to extend those hours to include the traffic-jammed lunchtime hours. 

Based on my calculations, with 50 more seats added to the 118 current seats, the resulting 168 seats would require almost all of the 158 off-street parking spaces located at the Wayne Town Center (WTC) where WD is located—leaving only a handful (8) of parking spaces for all of the other retail businesses and the 30,000 square feet of office space.  While most of the current office-related vehicles vacate their spaces in late afternoon, there is no assurance that this would always be the case.

WD’s main legal argument is that the Wayne Business Overlay District (WBOD) ordinance does not require ANY off-street parking for outdoor dining.  The WBOD includes both sides of Lancaster Avenue between Aberdeen and Banbury/Bloomingdale.  Therefore, the outcome of the WD appeal could impact any restaurant within the WBOD, now or in the future.

In addition to the shortage-of-parking issue, traffic safety is probably even more important.  Because of the very limited access area for customer vehicles in front of WD, vehicles frequently fill up the entire area in front of WD’s entrance while waiting for valets—frequently leading to vehicles blocking the sidewalk and stacking on busy Lancaster Avenue.  I’ve witnessed vehicles backing out of WD’s valet line onto Lancaster Avenue rather than continue waiting in the valet line.  In addition, I have seen vehicles backed up on Lancaster all the way to the light at Banbury due to insufficient WD parking capacity.  Contrary to Radnor Traffic Code, WD valets routinely double-park vehicles within the parking lot—preventing access by emergency vehicles and creating hazards for vehicles and pedestrians within the WTC parking lot. 

Attached is the Memorandum of Law from WD’s legal counsel as requested by the ZHB at the May 19th meeting.  At that hearing, I requested standing as a legal “party” in the appeal both for myself and on behalf of the Windsor Farm Neighborhood Association (WFNA).  If you read the attached Memorandum, I am erroneously referred to as “James” Sheehan.  WD objected to my request for party status on the basis that I live more than 500 feet away from the restaurant.  WD also argues that no resident belonging to WFNA lives within the requisite 500 feet—which I believe is incorrect.  Some of the residents on the west end of Windsor should have received notices as well as residents on Francis, Banbury, Bellevue, and the streets that surround WTC on the north side of Lancaster Ave.

In case you have not closely followed the WD issues, here is some background--

1. Late last year, WD was issued a Certificate of Occupancy for 63 seats, but during a zoning inspection in December, they were found to be operating with 174 seats, or 176% more seats than approved.
2. WD posted a notice on their employee entrance directing employees to park on nearby residential side streets, not in the off-street parking area.  Apparently, although Radnor zoning Code requires employers to provide off-street parking, there is no penalty or other enforcement mechanism to insure compliance with the Code.   Employers like WD are savvy to the weakness in the Code.  When employees park on residential side streets, their vehicles are parked there all day and every day.
3. Apparently, in an effort to be accommodative to business,  Radnor zoning increased the originally-approved 63 seats by 87%, or 55 seats, to the currently allowed 118 seats largely by the following “bend-over-backwards” determinations:
   1. Reallocating 13 parking spaces otherwise required for the yet-to-be leased Wayne Town Center basement office space.  What happens when the basement office space is leased?
   2. Not requiring 4 employee parking spaces for the 8 WD valet employees in the total employee headcount.
   3. These adjustments of 17 (13+4) parking spaces above thereby allowed WD to add 51 seats.

A few weeks ago, Radnor zoning enforcement inspected WD and counted 129 seats, or 11 more than allowed by their Occupancy Permit.  Both WD and Eastern Properties, owner of Wayne Town Center, were to be issued citations according to Radnor Zoning Officer, Matt Baumann.

Please join your concerned neighbors at the ZHB meeting on Thursday, June 16th at 7:30 PM.

Call me with any questions,

John Sheehan

409 Windsor Ave.

Wayne, PA 19087

Phone:   610-687-4692

Email:     johnsheehan@yahoo.com