VILLAGE OF HAMBURG
Tops plan for gas kiosk in Hamburg parking lot hits a snag
Tops Markets’ plan for a gas station kiosk outside its supermarket in the Village of Hamburg has failed to get a thumbs up from the village Planning Board, potentially raising a hurdle for the project.
Tops has proposed building the kiosk in a section of its parking lot, as part of a makeover of the store on South Park Avenue near Legion Drive.
The kiosk needs two zoning variances, which the Planning Board didn’t recommend at a meeting Tuesday. The kiosk would be in front of the main building and within 500 feet of a church, requiring variances.
“For the people that were there, the primary concern was traffic,” said Trustee Thomas Tallman, liaison to the Planning Board.
The kiosk would eliminate about 40 parking spaces, still leaving the plaza with enough parking to meet requirements, he said. But it would also create new patterns of traffic within the parking lot and on busy South Park Avenue.
Tops approached the village in June with plans to invest $4 million in renovations to the store. Another $650,000 would go for the gas station facility. The company had applied to install gas pumps in 2004 but withdrew the application while it considered locating in other areas.
The project goes next to the village Zoning Board of Appeals, without the Planning Board’s blessing.
The Town of Hamburg, whose boundary lies just north of Tops, has told the village that it has concerns about the traffic impact of the project, the town’s chief code inspector, Kurt Allen, said.
The village Planning Board did recommend zoning variances for the proposed Walgreens pharmacy in the same area, on South Park near Legion.
The drugstore needs variances concerning parking spaces and building height, Allen said.
That project, which straddles the town-village boundary, also faces questions about traffic and truck entry.
“Both [projects] need to get variances . . . or change the site plans,” Tallman said.
