Gussied-Up Gas Station Readies Brick Oven

Drivers fretting about gas prices may forget their worries at a new set of pumps on the way to Dixwell Avenue — with a slice of brick-oven pizza.

The pumps belong to a chain of next-gen gas station-comfort-food centers called Neon Marketplace. The three-year-old company is planning to bring its new kind of ​“convenience” stations to Hamden, assuming it passes zoning muster.

The company, Neon Marketplace Venture, received the first of its needed OKs Thursday night from the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals, which voted unanimously to grant a handful of variances. Now the company can bring its unique design forward to the Planning and Zoning Commission for site-plan approval.

ZBA commissioners offered that first-step approval after representatives of Neon pitched a picture Thursday of a hospitality-driven snack and gas stop, with both made-to-order meals (including their brick-oven pizza, ​“baked to 800ºF for authentic taste,” ​“just one bite” of which will make you a ​“believer,” according to their website) and drive-thru bean-to-cup drinks; Tesla superchargers and a bitcoin ATM; and up-to-date efforts to conform with the town’s complicated zoning code.

Neon approached the commission with a promise to bring the Dixwell property closer into conformity with the town’s zoning regulations even as it simultaneously asked for the ZBA’s permission to override several requirements.

The proposed development at 1890 Dixwell is located in one of Hamden’s ​“transect” or ​“T” zones. T zones refer to form-based zoning, a series of rules the town adopted in 2013 in an attempt to follow a new urbanist tradition that promotes aesthetic uniformity and walkable neighborhoods.

Most buildings in Hamden’s T zones do not conform with the town’s zoning regulations because they were built before those rules — which include specifics like ​“the first story of all facades shall be glazed with clear glass no less than 30% and shall be glazed at least 50% if a shopfront,” — were even written. (Read more about some efforts recently taken by town officials to ease the number of hoops developers have to jump through to build projects that conform with the zoning code here and here.)

On Thursday night, Jarrod Neuman, a development manager with Neon, and several colleagues and contractors argued that their site plan would improve the amount of greenery and landscaping on the property, better mask parking lots from the roadway, and narrow driveway entrances and exits — changes that more closely follow the T‑based zoning technicalities of the area which the current building on site does not adhere to.

In exchange, Neon requested exemptions from rules like the one listed above — that at least 30 percent of the convenience store’s facades should be glass. It also sought relief from regulations that push parking back behind buildings or far away from the curb or pinpoint exactly which dimensions of the property should be dedicated to storefront, pavement, or landscaping.

A gas station — which is a suitable use for the urban area under the zoning code — can’t abide by all of those regulations, Neuman and his colleagues asserted, because truckers and drivers need space to circulate around gas pumps, among other concerns about safety, practicality, and design taste.

In general, they argued that their business remains in line with the goal of building ​“walkable,” open neighborhoods: They plan to build a patio outside their brick-built, neon-lit convenience store, which will connect directly to the sidewalk.

Several residents residing on Palmer Avenue questioned the impact such a development would have on traffic around the area.

“It really looks good,” resident Susan D’Aniello said of the plan. ​“But I can’t even cross Benham at 9:30 in the morning.”

Traffic plans are commonly considered once a proposal advances from the ZBA to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Still, a transportation consultant from McMahon Associates addressed the concern, suggesting that moves to increase the number of driveways onto the site with ​“left” and ​“right” entrances and exits will help ​“clean up” overall traffic around the location and ​“improve safety.”

“We’ve been looking and selecting the best corners and sites we can find around New England,” Neuman said, pointing to the five locations Neon has already opened around Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He said the company has seven more gas stations slated to open before the end of the year.

The Hamden site may create up to 30 jobs, Neuman said.

“We plan to create as much good as we can,” he said. ​“We want people to feel safe, welcome and warm here.”