HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 2A - D Woods email1
Anita Fields
From:Dennis Woods <dennis.l.woods@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, March 25, 2025 4:12 PM
To:Christopher Hadwin; Anita Fields; Kathy Weremiuk
Subject:Planning Commission Item No. 2A Public Comment
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Dear Christopher, Kathy and Anita,
Can you ensure the following comments are provided to the Planning Commissioners tonight for their
meeting.
Dear Commissioners,
Thank you for serving as a Planning Commission working to enhance our built environment. I understand
that you will be considering a drive-thru in Palm Springs. For a variety of reasons, allowing drive-thrus is
not a choice that supports the City's "Like No Place Else" motto nor are drive-thrus consistent with the
many approved plans and regulations.
Palm Springs Mission Statement is:
"Palm Springs is an inclusive world class city dedicated to providing excellent and responsive public
services to enhance the quality of life for current and future generations."
Permitting a drive-thrus will:
- Not enhance our quality of life for current or future residents
- Is discriminatory and not inclusive
- Diminishes our "Like No Place Else" image
- Endangers pedestrians, bicyclists, and the disabled
- Is not in keeping with our mission statement
- Won’t do anything to improve the surrounding neighborhoods.
- Is not healthy for workers
- Is dependent upon disposable packaging
- Does not enhance our main source of income, tourism
- Has negative environmental consequences not satisfying the principals of our:
1. Sustainability Master Plan
2. Climate Action Roadmap
3. Climate Action Plan
4. Non-motorized Transportation Plan
The City has spent a tremendous amount of time, effort and public outreach to develop the above plans
as well as the General Plan and these plans should serve as your roadmap when considering
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development proposals. The City’s built environment should look and evoke in people a feeling that they
are entering a place like nowhere else. Allowing drive-thrus visually diminishes the principles by which
the City is built upon and sends a strong message that we are NOT unique or care about our environment
or the health of our people. Becoming more car dependent is contrary to the plans we have in place. Our
built environment should reinforce our mission statement, plans, and our hopes for our future.
A few years ago the City spent over $80,000 on the Blue Zones Project and since that time the Coachella
Valley Blue Zone Project has expanded by partnering with predominant health care providers to focus on
making our community a place where people live better, longer with a higher quality of life. Rather than
relying on individual behavior change, Blue Zones Project focuses on creating surroundings that default
to healthier behaviors.
This is where you come in as every decision you make will either enhance or diminish the vast amount of
work that has been completed before your decision tonight.
There are many news and scholarly articles on the dangers of drive-thrus below are just a couple.
In June 2023 CNN published an article on why drive-thrus are creating problems for cities and towns.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/24/business/drive-thru-fast-food-chick-fil-a-urban-planning/index.html
The article states drive-thrus are:
"Magnets of traffic and congestion, drive-thrus discourage walking, public transit use and visits to
neighboring businesses. They also lead to accidents with pedestrians, cyclists and other cars, and
contradict the environmental and livability goals of many communities."
The MinnPost wrote an article about why drive-thrus are bad for cities: The article states:
"drive-thrus can be inaccessible to anyone not in a car. Many fast-food restaurants close their walk-in
restaurants late at night, while keeping their drive-thrus open (sometimes 24 hours). This practice
actually prompted a lawsuit against a local White Castle back in 2009, when a woman on an electric
scooter argued that drive-thru-only service amounted to discrimination."
Even the US Department of Labor discusses the hazards of drive-thrus on young workers (let alone older
workers) including:
1. Car exhaust
2. Noise
3. Prolonged standing
4. Strains and sprains
5. Workplace violence
My opinion has nothing to do with the actual applicant but the fact that the proposal contains a drive-
thru. I believe in and want to reinforce the magic that Palm Springs offers the world over and to do that
we need to continue to make decisions that will keep us a world class tourist destination as well as a
livable place for our residents. Drive-thrus do not do that.
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I am happy to discuss in more detail at your pleasure. Thanks for your time and service.
Cordially,
Hon. Dennis Woods
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