Collingwood is looking at limiting any new opportunities for you to grab that quick cup of coffee or burger.
Councillor Ian Chadwick brought forward the idea of looking at restricting or limiting the drive thrus which sparked a lengthy discussion.
Chadwick says the issue has to be taken seriously if the town wants to promote active transportation and reduce vehicle emissions.
But Councillor Tim McNabb says eliminating drive thrus would deter some new businesses from coming to Collingwood.
McNabb says he has run 2 drive thrus and over 50 percent of business came from them.
He says 90 to 120 cars would go through the drive thru in a peak hour so if you take away a drive thru on a new business, more parking would be needed and that just wouldn’t work in most cases.
McNabb says he’d like to see council look at improving drive thrus and making sure new ones are safe and don’t have cueing on public roads.
Council also discussed whether to allow buildings in the downtown core to be taller than the 6 metres that is allowed now.
An idea was also put forward to look at detering developers from tearing down heritage buildings downtown by making the developer pay cash in lieu of parking.
The planning department hopes to have the zoning by-law ready by November with atleast one more workshop before then.
McNabb says it’s possible to meet the deadline if council spends a couple of hours each council meeting discussing the by-law.
The issue of whether or not to allow large commercial vehicles to park in residential areas has been a controversial part of the proposed by-law, but the issue did not come up at this workshop.