Garrison Road property owner eyes bringing Harvey’s to town

One of the enduring hallmarks of the Harvey’s franchise is how the locations offer full customization for their burgers.

That’s in part why the drive-throughs for the popular fast food burger joints are usually small, since customers often prefer to come into the restaurants and take a look at the various toppings and condiments offered. At least that’s according to Amit Khera, who wants to bring a Harvey’s to Fort Erie, and his planning consultant Greg Taras.

However, that customizability may need to extend beyond burgers and to the building itself, as a proposal to build a Harvey’s was greeted with some hesitancy from councillors at a November 17 public meeting. In addition to the proposed Harvey’s location, Khera also wants to make some changes to the property that currently has a gas and service station at the intersection of Garrison and Pettit roads.

“If, ultimately, council were to approve the zoning, at the same time we do that, we should be dealing with how many entranceways, what the size of the entranceways will be, what the flow of traffic will be…that type of thing. We should do that all at the zoning stage?” Mayor Wayne Redekop asked staff, referring to some of the concerns he and members of council had with the proposal.

While many of those issues may typically be addressed at the site plan stage, Director of Planning and Development Services Anamika Dilwaria told council that staff’s preference is to take care of major issues at the zoning stage, so the site plan can be used to overcome any technical hurdles. If those are the major issues, some kind of resolution at the zoning stage would be preferable, she said.

“It is always staff’s recommendation to resolve the major issues at the zoning stage,” she said, noting that once it gets to the site plan stage, it’s highly unlikely a project would be denied.

In addition to changing the zoning to allow for the Harvey’s to go on the property, the applicants are also seeking formal recognition of the existing vehicle rental and sales business that’s on site.

For their part, the applicants seemed open to discussions. Taras, a consultant with Urban Environmental Management, suggested they could reduce the size of the drive-through lane to 10 vehicle spaces, from the proposed 16. Since Harvey’s customers are more likely to walk in to place their order, he said the added drive-through space likely isn’t needed.

“Which would help in terms of the existing house that’s at the north of the property, so we wouldn’t have vehicles idling and sitting in a drive-through lane along that part of the property,” Taras said, adding it could also open up some more parking spaces for the planned businesses.

Staff will now take the information and input they received at the meeting and develop a recommendation report for council. In the meantime, Redekop said he hopes staff were “picking up the vibes” of council, so the plan gets tweaked to alleviate some concerns between now and the recommendation report.

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