Wellfleet’s opinion of an enlarged Cumby’s is pretty clear [ CCT 24 January 2012 ]

For whatever reason, the little town of Wellfleet, with our off-the-grid self-image has, after long neglect, been coming up on corporate radar.

Hard on the heels of Dunkin’ Donuts’ application to enhance its beachhead here with a drive-thru window, Cumberland Farms has applied for a makeover. It proposes to enlarge the store itself and move it back from Route 6 ( considerably closer to abutters,) to make room for a gas station, which will be loomed over by a canopy and overhead lights.

The Zoning Board of Appeals already had one hearing on the s pecial permit for this ambitious undertaking and will have another, and perhaps take the vote, on February 2 (7 at the Senior Center).

Cumby’s has been here for so long—late 1970s, it turns out—most of us can’t remember when it wasn’t. It may be one of those formula businesses banned by a recently passed zoning bylaw, but it has become such a familiar part of the local bizscape, we use that cuddly nickname for it.

Which doesn’t mean that most citizens want a souped up version thereof.

At the December hearing the company spent a lot of time proving that its plans don’t break any laws. And that’s important. (The police and fire chiefs both expressed concern about the safety of some of the proposal.) But the main issue here is: Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Is this good for the town?

Or, as I trust the ZBA is thinking about it: would most of the citizens the board represents think it’s good for the town?

The advantages, according to the company’s lawyer at the December hearing, pretty much come down to the greater convenience of “one stop shopping”–gas plus food. If two or three gas stations are good, another one would be even better, the company’s thinking goes. (There’s a moribund station across the road from Cumby’s that may be restarted; it and another one both have their own convenience stores.)

If the smaller convenience store is good, a bigger store would surely be even more convenient, right?

The ZBA ‘s main job should be to assess how the town thinks about this corporate logic.

It’s not how it works, but ideally every proposal for a new business (or change in an existing one) would start with a suggestion box or petition signed by a significant percentage of citizens. Failing such evidence of a genuine, felt need, is there any evidence suggesting widespread frustration with the size of the existing Cumby’s? A groundswell of opinion that we need yet another gas station?

At the December hearing, virtually none of the citizens who spoke or letters read into the record bought the company’s version of the virtues of its proposal. The disadvantages to abutters of bright lights and increased commotion are obvious. Residents spoke of summer traffic made even more annoying and dangerous. Increased numbers of impatient drivers waiting to make the left hand turn into the new Cumby’s for that one-stop shopping would hardly come under the category of convenience. At best more like what lawyers call an “attractive nuisance.”

As for the opinion of those not at the hearing, no need to re-invent the wheel. The town meeting vote a year and a half ago to ban all formula businesses provides a pretty good clue of what the majority of citizens, if polled, would think of allowing a grandfathered formula business to get larger.

Even though that bylaw doesn’t apply to Cumby’s, what’s proposed is an enlargement of a sort of operation clearly declared business-non-grata.

Dunkin’ Donuts has withdrawn its application for the drive-thru window, opting to live to fight another day. No doubt the almost unanimous local opposition had something to do with that judicious decision. It is to be hoped that the town’s zoning board will give as much weight as the Dunkin’ executives to clear local opinion of this similar proposal, with many of the same problems.

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