Every Clay Planning Board member who spoke on the McDonald's plan headed for the plaza at Route 31 and West Taft Road raised the same worry: when the drive-through backs up, drivers will cut through to Cedarpost Road instead of waiting. The board sent the project on to the Town Board anyway, voting 6-0 on July 9, 2025 to forward the special permit referral with each member's individual comments attached, pending a traffic study from C&S Companies that was still being finalized. The plan itself has changed since the board last saw it. Engineer Randy Bebout of Bohler Engineering, appearing with applicant representative Joe Frateschi, said the McDonald's building has been shifted 8 feet to the east to lengthen the driveway from the plaza entrance, that green space and an island at the northwest corner have been increased, that the access drive on the north side has been eliminated, and that 11 parking spaces will now be marked for employees only. An east-west island coming in from West Taft Road was extended by one more parking space. None of that resolved the board's core concern: how cars move once they are inside the plaza. Member Hal Henty said there is still a safety concern with the employee-only spaces, since signage will not necessarily stop other drivers from using them. Member Paul Graves walked through the geometry – a right-turn arrow and left-turn arrow both feeding into Wegmans on West Taft Road, plus incoming traffic from Wintersweet Drive, already causes backups onto West Taft Road without a McDonald's in the plaza, he said, and the added volume from a drive-through over such a short distance would need close attention to signal timing. Two residents echoed the point during the public hearing. Debbie Errante, of Roseann Drive, who said she has raised concerns before about traffic on Cedarpost Road, told the board that drivers frustrated by backups at the stop signs would find their way out to Cedarpost. Erika Gallucci, of Astilbe Path, agreed, saying that when the plaza is backed up, "people will go around to Cedarpost to make the exit." Deputy Chair Michelle Borton said the outcome hinges on the independent traffic study C&S was finishing, which the Town Board will use to weigh internal circulation and safety. Member Al McMahon called the layout a "good faith design" but agreed that drivers leaving McDonald's and seeing a backup would simply channel over to Cedarpost. Member Karen Guinup thanked the applicant for its revisions, noted the county has no ingress/egress improvements planned for West Taft Road even as more development is planned nearby, and said the Town Board "needs to take a serious look" at the traffic studies. Chairman Russ Mitchell, who said he has followed this site since 2016, called the current layout the best solution he has seen proposed for a McDonald's in this plaza, but described the fit as like "putting 10 lbs. in a 5 lb. bag." He floated a possible fix raised that same day: a second ingress/egress at the back of the lot, on the east side in front of the other businesses, exiting onto Cedarpost Road to relieve pressure on the existing entrance there. Henty, for his part, asked, “why can’t an AI traffic study be done to say yes it can be done or no it can’t.” The project also requires rezoning the plaza parcel from LUC-1 to RC-1, which Mitchell explained to a resident who asked about the green area shown on the revised drawing. The board closed the hearing and voted to send the referral forward with members' individual comments rather than a single unified recommendation, leaving the traffic questions for the Town Board to weigh against the study once it is complete. The rest of the July 9 meeting was mostly deferral. Six other cases – including site plans for Equipment Share Syracuse on Dey Road, Charge Smart EV at the Townplace Suites, Seneca Savings on Route 31, Canandaigua National Bank on Oswego Road, and an EVgo charging amendment at the Barnes & Noble plaza – were adjourned to July 23, and two John Fisher Construction cases on Wetzel Road were pushed to October 8. The one other substantive vote came on a special permit for fuel storage tanks at a Goguen Drive Realty property, which the board recommended 6-0 even as members said the site's owner has "a reputation for nonconforming." Several members said they had scrutinized the application more than usual because of the site's history, but agreed that history was not grounds to deny the permit; monitoring for violations, they said, would now fall to the Codes Department.