Valdosta City Council denies permit for car-wash facility
Dec. 11—VALDOSTA — The Valdosta City Council unanimously denied a permit request for a potential car wash facility Thursday evening.
Planning Director Matt Martin took the podium introducing a consideration of an ordinance for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for a full-service car wash facility in a community-commercial (C-C) zoning district, as well as the Baytree-University Corridor Overlay district. The request was submitted by Crown Development.
"Their proposal is to develop this as a commercial car wash with a drive through tunnel and I think 17 vacuum stations," Martin said during the presentation.
The proposed facility would be located on property located at 806 Baytree Road, which is adjacent to residential properties.
The Planning Commission reviewed the proposal at its Nov. 27 meeting and recommended approval subject to two conditions (3-2 vote). The conditions clarified the requirement for noise reduction features and an expiration date of two years from the date of approval if a permit of construction was issued by the date.
Stephen Chichola spoke in favor during the public hearing as a representative of Crown Development Group. He explained the proposal would be an express exterior car wash with design similarities from the Valdosta State Campus near the property.
"We understand noise reduction is a key to this being that we are abutting up to some adjacent residential properties. We're going to take into consideration with our landscape buffers making sure we have an opaque fence ... along with some adjacent landscaping so we can minimize noise reduction for those abutting residential," Chichola explained to the council.
Jay Blanton was the sole person who came forward in opposition to the proposal. Blanton raised concerns on the placement of the car wash in the surrounding residential area.
"That's a really residential area, and I can appreciate there are some very distinct differences between this type of car wash and the one across the road. It's basically redundant," Blanton said. "When it comes to noise reduction and this is something that has plagued the owner of the one across the street before, so we had contemplated ... on putting timers on the blowers because there's just no hushing them to the point to make the neighbors happy. It can go late into the night at times ... It's incredibly loud. It's a lot of machinery. You can try to reduce it but there's no finite way to do it."
Councilman Eric Howard of District 4 made a motion to deny the request with the second of Councilman Andy Gibbs of District 6. Council members Vivan Miller-Cody of District 1, Thomas B. McIntyre, Sr of District 3 and Sandra Tooley of District 2 were absent from the vote.
Other actions
The council unanimously approved the request to purchase structural firefighting gear for the Valdosta Fire Department as presented by Fire Chief Brian Boutwell. Boutwell said the gear purchase would cost about $76,775 during the work session Tuesday evening.
Police Chief Leslie Manahan presented request for modernization of the elevator at the Valdosta-Lowndes Regional Crime Laboratory and Public Works Administrator Larry Ogden presented a consideration of a request to approve the Valdosta On-Demand Safety Plan in accordance with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) when expending 5307 Grant Funds. Both were passed with a vote 4-0.
The next Valdosta City Council work session meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 9, at 5:30 p.m.
