P&Z: Plainfield Dunkin Sign Variances Approved as Neighbor Cites Unmet 2015 Promises

Will County Planning and Zoning Commission | October 6, 2026

Article Summary: The Will County Board Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, approved two sign variances allowing a third wall sign and an existing drive-through menu board at an Amoco station with a Dunkin at 16360 Lincoln Highway, after hearing from an adjacent homeowner who said screening, fencing and lighting conditions tied to the site’s 2015 drive-through approval were never carried out.

Lincoln Highway Sign Variance Key Points:

• Variance V-26-140 allows three wall signs on the Lincoln Highway building frontage, where the ordinance permits one; V-26-173 legalizes an existing menu board 65 feet from residential zoning, where 75 feet is required.
• Neither the owner, Shree Sudarsan LLC, nor sign agent Raymond Mandarino appeared; commission counsel advised the hearing could proceed anyway.
• Adjacent owner Kevin Lane told the commission landscape screening was never installed, a six-foot fence went up where an eight-foot fence was promised, and exterior lighting was changed without a permit and shines into his house.
• Staff said a code enforcement complaint is already on file and that the county has recourse if lighting was installed without a permit or a photometric plan.

WILL COUNTY — The Will County Board Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, approved two sign variances for a Plainfield Township gas station and Dunkin drive-through, clearing the way for a corporate rebranding — but only after a neighbor used the public hearing to press grievances dating to the site’s 2015 drive-through approval.

The commission granted both requests in case ZC-26-039 on separate roll-call votes, each announced as passing. Staff had recommended approval of both.

Zoning Administrator Marguerite Kenny, AICP, who prepared the Sept. 25, 2026, staff report, said the 1.16-acre site at 16360 Lincoln Highway “has a long history of zoning cases that allowed the development of the site as a gas station.” Zoning Case 611-W, approved March 4, 1960, rezoned the parcel for a gas station. Case 6240-SV2, approved July 16, 2015, granted the special use permit for the Dunkin drive-through, along with a variance for freestanding signs and a reduced setback for the drive-through menu board. Case ZC-23-059, approved Nov. 16, 2023, authorized packaged liquor sales.

The property is lot 232 in unit number two of the Franklin Heights subdivision and is a conforming C-2 lot with frontage on three roads — South Frontage Road, Lincoln Highway and Spangler Road — with R-3 single-family residential property to the south.

Dunkin has operated on the site since 2016 or 2017 under permits #1500988 and #1501866. Following the chain’s April 2024 corporate rebranding, sign permits #2502864 and #2502866 were submitted for new freestanding and wall signage.

Two Problems the Variances Fix

Section 155-13.50-B of the county zoning ordinance allows “a maximum of one wall sign … per 100 feet of building frontage or fraction thereof.” The Lincoln Highway frontage measures 69.2 feet and already carries two wall signs — one authorized through Amoco rebranding sign permit 1903168, the other installed without a permit and now being addressed through after-the-fact sign permit 2602693. The staff report notes the unpermitted installation “was not cited as a zoning violation.” Adding the new Dunkin sign brings the total to three.

“Right now the facility has two with the Dunkin adding a third. They will have three,” Kenny said. She added that the owner is “working on getting that corrected as we speak” on the unpermitted sign.

Kenny said the three proposed signs will still fall within the 250-square-foot alternative wall sign area permitted under Section 155-13.50-B-3-a, and that the new Dunkin signage has a smaller overall footprint than the former Dunkin’ Donuts branding.

The second variance addresses the drive-through menu board, which is being refaced but not moved. Section 155-13.50-G-2 requires menu board signs to sit at least 75 feet from residential zoning districts. The 2015 case approved a 72-foot setback. The board was built about 65 feet from the southern property line.

“It was built 65 feet from the property line,” Kenny said. “So the applicant is here before you correcting that just to bring the signage into compliance going forward.”

Staff found the proposed changes would maintain the established commercial use and character of the property, with no building expansion or menu board relocation involved, and attributed the circumstances to a combination of existing site conditions, the rebranding and installation of one wall sign without the required permit.

Neighbor Raises Lighting, Fence and Screening

No one appeared for the applicant. When the chair called for the agent, attorney or principal, none came forward.

Kevin Lane, who identified himself as the adjacent property owner, said he had three concerns, none of them about the signs themselves. He said the 2015 drive-through layout included landscape screening and an eight-foot fence. “It doesn’t seem like anybody followed up to see if these designs were completed, because the screening was never done and a six-foot fence was placed instead of an eight-foot fence,” he said. “It created some visual ugliness.”

Lane said the only screening plantings on the property line are ones he supplied himself — Austrian pines that were largely lost to pests, leaving two, plus privets he planted this spring partway along the line.

He also said exterior lighting was changed without a permit, holding up a photograph for the commission at the chairman’s request. The fixtures, he said, “angle at an upward and broadcast light into the house.”

He said he raised the issue with a land use department employee that day, whom he identified as “Doug,” and was told to try blackout blinds. Staff corrected the name on the record, saying the department has no Doug and that the employee was Greg, who is now aware of the concerns. Lane also questioned how the county measures light at a property line where a fence casts a shadow, noting that a meter held 18 inches above the ground and walked along the line would be behind the fence: “So are you measuring shadow or are you measuring light that’s broadcast?”

Pressed on whether he opposed the case before the commission, Lane said he had no objection to the third sign or the menu board, and asked that his other grievances be addressed. His remaining concern on the signs themselves, he said, was whether signage might be lowered so it is not visible over the fence.

Commission Proceeds, Refers Complaints to Code Enforcement

“Mr. Chairman, how do you proceed without the owner here to even answer questions from the public?” one commissioner asked. Commission counsel, identified at the hearing only by the first name Todd, advised that the hearing could move forward without the applicant.

Staff told the commission Lane had come into the office, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on the property and submitted his concerns to code enforcement, which will compare the conditions against the county’s ordinance and issue violation letters if warranted.

A staff member said a review of the 2015 zoning case turned up no condition requiring an eight-foot fence, adding that “it’s quite possible that somebody said something here during a hearing that they would do something but then they didn’t end up doing it.” The ordinance does set specific screening requirements between residential and commercial uses, staff said, and fencing is one option.

On the lighting, staff said no lighting plan appears in the permit history. “If lights were installed, they should have had a permit, and the photometric plan is required, and there are restrictions on what the number can be on adjacent property and at the property line,” the staff member said, adding that the county “would have recourse if we could prove … they were installed without a permit.” He confirmed code enforcement would follow up with Lane.

One commissioner told Lane he would support the variances because staff recommended approval, but that “there is recourse for you with the county if something was approved in an earlier time.” Stipan said the commission would “go ahead and continue on and take a vote on the current issue and let code enforcement make the decisions afterwards.”

The C-2 zoned site is bounded by Spangler Road, South Frontage Road and Lincoln Highway. The fueling station has four pumps and can serve eight vehicles at once, classifying it as a minor motor vehicle fueling station under Section 155-8.40(Y)(2). U.S. Route 30 carries about 23,600 vehicles a day and is a Class II State Designated Truck Route; I-55 nearby carries about 61,000. The Will-South Cook Soil and Water Conservation District filed Natural Resource Information Report #5893 on May 27, 2026, finding little to no effect on the land. No notified agency objected. The parcel is in County Board District 8.