CVS Moving Forward with Fairfax Plans

Plans to put a new CVS at the entrance of Fairfax are moving forward, in spite of tough questions from neighborhood residents at a presentation last month.

The wooded lot is eyed for a $4 million relocation of the drugstore chain's current St. James Avenue site.

City Planning Director Daniel Ben-Yisrael said this week that the project managers are expected to submit a rezoning request for consideration by the planning commission this fall.

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At a neighborhood meeting last month, residents were worried about traffic and the impact the store will have on a nearby playground.

Ben-Yisrael noted the property isn't currently zoned for a drugstore and a rezoning would require approval by the city's planning commission and City Council.

The property will need a general commercial zoning, but it is currently zoned for restricted commercial — only allowing something small like a barber shop or beauty parlor.

"It was zoned to provide some protection to the Fairfax neighborhood," Ben-Yisrael said.

The city staff have not developed a recommendation for the planning commission regarding the request.

Regardless, it will be a difficult argument, particularly with what will certainly be a large crowd of residents expressing concern during any public hearing. 

Earlier this year, IGA was looking to develop a grocery store near two neighborhoods on Goose Creek Boulevard. That case was similar in that it involved a wooded lot on a commercial corridor that happened to sit in front of long-standing Goose Creek neighborhoods.

It wasn't long after that meeting that developers pulled out and said they'd look for another site that was less controversial.