Landscape screens are used to screen site service areas, dumpster pads and lay down and storage areas all of which are unsightly and often cluttered and disorganized. Secondary business elevations are building walls generally with canopied areas used for customer service with drive through pick up points, temporary car stacking lanes or car holding spaces or departure lanes and associated plantings used for screening and customer satisfaction. These facilities exhibit some of the same disruptive qualities of service areas, storage areas and dumpster pads. A secondary business elevation can consist of one pick up point such as an AMT, two pick up points such as McDonald’s hamburgers or multiple pick up points such as a drive through neighborhood bank using a pneumatic system of pick up and delivery. There is generally a site entry point connected to a travel lane that feeds this facility.
In some communities screening is required of drive through service areas for fast food restaurants, pharmacies, banks, drive up ATM’s and other fast pick up facilities. In some states, motorist can even pick up alcoholic beverages in this manner. These secondary business elevations have become very popular in recent years and more and more retail facilities want to use them since so much revenue can be generated in this manner. These facilities are very popular as well with customers too. They do not have to enter the business or deal directly with people to pick up the burritos, fried chicken or aspirin tablets.
But this type of service exacts an environment price on the community. Air, water, visual, noise pollution and around the clock disruption result due to this convenience of pick up. But perhaps the biggest problem facing a city is that these facilities add to the amount of site paving, run off and chemical pollutants put into the environment due to automobile exhaust, excess paving and lack of site permeability. More and more communities want regulations to address this typically American form of site planning.
