SLO County city denies application to build new car wash. ‘It’s a terrible project.’

A new car wash won’t be coming to Arroyo Grande after the city denied a proposed project on East Grand Avenue during a tense — and at times emotional — meeting Tuesday.

During Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting, applicant Ryan Talley and architect Cebulla Associates were denied a conditional use permit to convert three lots at 414, 418 and 422 East Grand Ave. into a car wash. The project would have replaced the three existing single-family homes that currently sit on the corner of Oak Avenue and East Grand Avenue with a new 2,560-square-foot car wash with one entrance and exit point on Oak Street.

Dozens of Oak Street residents showed up during public comment to speak against the project, with many residents citing concerns over noise and traffic impacts on nearby homes.

Because the project technically complied with most standards required for a conditional use permit, it was difficult to say no to the project, commissioner Jamie Maraviglia said during the meeting.

“I hate the idea of jeopardizing the future for a project that relies so heavily on water usage,” Maraviglia said. “That being said, I’m not sure if we have the legal authority to overturn this project, in terms of where it’s zoned and their appropriateness for the zone. That angers me because although it is a beautiful building, I think it’s a terrible project.”

Ultimately, however, the Planning Commission opted to vote against granting the conditional use permit due to the concerns about water use and traffic.

The Planning Commission voted 3-0 to deny the project’s conditional use permit and added a resolution to the next agenda outlining their reasons for denial, with commissioners Kevin Buchanan and Catherine Sackrison absent.

Arroyo Grande car wash project would have significant water needs

As proposed, the car wash would look like a large farmhouse-style building, with an automated kiosk and wash tunnel running parallel to East Grand Avenue.

The project site is bordered to the east by a McDonald’s, and by residential neighborhoods to the north and west.

To mitigate some of the noise concerns, the project would include a reduced car wash exit size of 10 feet by 10 feet, a 6-foot wall along the northern end of the property line and an acoustic liner near the exit of the wash to dampen noise generated by the tunnel, according to the application.

The applicant proposed running the car wash between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. November through January and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. February through October to keep noise restricted to daylight hours.

Commissioner Bruce Berlin pointed out that the project still featured several outdoor vacuum cleaners, which were not acoustically isolated from the surrounding homes and businesses.

The applicant also proposed adding an underground water reclamation tank, which would reclaim about 70% of the water used by the wash.

These tanks would be equipped with clarifiers that would capture sediment and detergent from the water before it entered the city’s stormwater system, according to the application.

However, no matter how much is reclaimed, the project still fundamentally relied on water to function.

Talley told the Planning Commission each car wash uses 18-22 gallons of water — about as much as one shower — and said the wash systems he hoped to introduce would be highly efficient.

Car wash could add more than 600 vehicle trips to area

According to a traffic study commissioned by the applicant, the project would “conservatively generate” 612 new daily vehicle trips on streets surrounding the project site such as Highway 101, East Branch Street, East Grand Avenue, Oak Street and Halcyon Road.

That stretch of East Grand Avenue already serves 17,400 vehicles every day as of 2018, according to the application.

Talley said he estimated about 250 cars per day would use the car wash, with most of the traffic coming from Grand Avenue.

“This express model is all about car counts — you want to put it on the busiest road in your town, because it’s just a drive-by,” Talley said. “This specific car wash isn’t necessarily a destination.”

Commissioner Virginia Roof expressed concerns the traffic going through the wash would largely run through Oak Street because the sole entrance and exit is on that road, potentially introducing traffic concerns for the Arroyo Grande Montessori school down the street and nearby families

Maraviglia said she was concerned the project’s proposed subscription model — which incentivizes customers to routinely use the car wash — would elevate traffic and reduce the amount of money the city could collect in tax from the business.

Her main concern, however, was about water usage; even though reserves such as Lopez Lake are currently relatively full, if a wash takes 18-22 gallons of water, hundreds of washes every day will introduce a new drain on Arroyo Grande’s water supply, she said.

“We may not be in a drought right now, but I can tell you, we will be in a drought again, and we will be in a drought soon, just with the way the world is,” Maraviglia said. “We have nothing within our regulations that could that tell us what kind of businesses that can come in dependent on their water usage.”

Neighbors worried about traffic, water use

At public comment, multiple residents expressed their opposition to the project, with at times emotional testimony from neighbors concerned about the impacts the car wash might have on their area.

Dave Friesen, a resident of Oak Street near the project site, said he’s concerned about the traffic impact because his kids often play in the front yard. Normally, Oak Street is relatively free of traffic, he said, but he didn’t expect it to stay that way if a car wash was built.

“Every morning, I leave at 6:30 in the morning and I take Oak and I go right to Grand, and even at 6:30 in the morning, I’m having problems pulling out — I have to pull into the center divider just so I don’t get hit by cars coming,” Friesen said.

Resident Patty Welsh said there are already four car washes in Arroyo Grande, including a Sinclair and Valero on the same stretch of Grand Avenue as the proposed wash.

“We don’t have a shortage of car washes in the city, but what we do have is a water shortage, and although we just had a nice winter of rain, we are many years away from fully recharging groundwater tables that are so critical to our water supply,” Welsh said. “We are very fortunate to have Lake Lopez full for the first time in decades, but just three short years ago, we had a lake at the lowest levels they have ever seen.”