McDonald’s seeks Huntington zoning exception for Greenlawn restaurant site

McDonald’s has asked Huntington Town for a zoning exception to build a restaurant on the northeast corner of Pulaski Road and Park Avenue in Greenlawn, a corner that already handles heavy traffic and once housed a bank.

The application from McDonald’s USA LLC puts the town’s zoning process at the center of the debate. Under Huntington’s rules, proposals that may not comply with Chapter 198 zoning must be reviewed by the Department of Planning and Environment, which can issue a Letter of Denial before the request goes to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Once a ZBA application is complete and accepted, the town says it can take two to three months to schedule a public hearing, and hearings are set on a first-come, first-served basis.

That timetable makes the restaurant proposal more than a simple real estate change. A McDonald’s at Pulaski Road and Park Avenue would add another high-turnover use to a busy Huntington corridor, and the town will have to weigh how much traffic, parking demand and driveway activity the site can absorb. The question is not just whether a national chain wants to enter Greenlawn, but whether this particular corner can handle the congestion and spillover that often come with drive-thru service and frequent customer visits.

The town’s decision will also touch a larger land-use pattern along Pulaski Road, where development has already drawn scrutiny. Huntington’s 2021 Matinecock Court news release said the existing settlement agreement called for 155 low-income residential units at Pulaski Road and Elwood Road in East Northport, underscoring that the corridor has already been the focus of contentious planning decisions. The McDonald’s proposal now adds a commercial test case to that same stretch of road.

Edmund J. Smyth, re-elected Huntington Town Supervisor for a second term beginning Jan. 1, 2026, is now presiding over a land-use question that will help show how his administration handles growth on one of the town’s more heavily traveled roads. For Greenlawn, the stakes reach beyond burgers and breakfast sandwiches: the hearing will help determine whether Huntington is prepared to bend its zoning for a familiar brand, or whether the town intends to hold the line on how commercial projects fit into neighborhood-scale streets and intersections.