One month after the City blocked off an exit to several Auburndale car service centers - leaving one main entrance/exit for the several centers - the owners have been told that they will need to apply for a special waiver to get approval for a curb cut permit, for a cut that was done several decades ago.
Until the exit is reopened, the owners of three of the service centers are worried that their employees and customers are in danger.
“With all the traffic coming in and going out, there is a greater potential to have an accident and for someone to get hurt,” said Douglas Callahan, the owner of the Helms Brothers Mercedes-Benz service center, one of five situated on four parcels of adjoining properties.
The exit in question, located at the intersection of Auburndale Lane and Station Road - a one-way street heading south - leads out of the Star Toyota and Star Nissan service centers, which share one property, as well as the Mercedes service center.
Cunningham Buick Pontiac GMC and Barron Lincoln Mercury each have their own separate entrance/exit.
John Koufakis, who owns the Star Toyota and Star Nissan service centers with his son, Michael, said he remembered that the curb cut had existed when the property had been the Macy's warehouse, long before he bought the property seven years ago. Several years before Star Toyota and Star Nissan moved in, the property was vacant.
“Given the condition that it was prior, I think we made it really nice,” said Michael Koufakis.
Since the Koufakis' centers opened five years ago, customers have used the exit - going straight onto the one-way Auburndale Lane towards Northern Boulevard. To make sure that no one made a right-hand turn into Station Road - a one-way street headed in the opposite direction - Callahan and Koufakis had placed a sign indicating that a right was not allowed.
With the exit closed, customers and employees must now drive where two-way traffic barely fits.
“You could stay here 10 minutes and be able to see the danger,” Koufakis said. “In the case of an emergency, EMS will have to go around two or three blocks to make it in here.”
Before the exit was closed, the traffic from cars leaving the service centers did not sit well with local residents, who made eight complaints to the DOB. They cited an excessive number of cars, that construction was done without a permit, that there was no barrier between commercial and residential property, and that deliveries were made through the small driveway instead of the loading dock and main entrance, according the Department of Buildings (DOB) website.
A DOB inspector was sent to the location twice to investigate the complaints, but each one was found to be unsubstantiated during the last visit to the site on Thursday, September 14.
No action was necessary to create a barrier between the residential and commercial properties because the “Jersey” wall barrier had already been set up to block the exit.
Because the driveway had been created without a curb-cut permit, the Department of Transportation (DOT) blocked off the exit on Friday, September 8.
“[The Jersey wall] doesn't close it off; [drivers] just can't go down that street,” said Craig Chin, a spokesperson from the DOT.
When the service center owners applied for a curb cut permit, their application was referred to the DOT because the exit is located within 50 feet of an intersection. Now Callahan said that they are considering the next course of action.
To reopen the exit, the dealers would need to file an application for a waiver to the 50-foot rule, along with an application for a permit from the DOT to temporarily close down the sidewalk.
“Emotions are very high,” Callahan said, explaining that the service centers have made several concessions and supported changes that benefited the community - changing the hours for deliveries, building a sidewalk on Auburndale Lane, supporting the placement of speed bumps on Auburndale Lane, and calling for the addition of a stop light on nearby Utopia Parkway.
Car service centers' exit blocked by DOT
By Christina Santucci
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