County moves toward making new car washes a harder sell in Pasco

Wesley Chapel — Future car washes may be an endangered species in Pasco County, if the County Commission proceeds with adopting new rules that could severely curtail the industry’s growth. After weeks of hammering out something it thinks works, and in the process postponing a decision meeting after meeting, the Planning, Development and Economic Growth Department presented a proposal Sept. 3 to the board that amends the county’s land development code. The vote to adopt that proposal, which the county says will preserve job-generating land and curtail the frequency of car washes in busy transportation corridors, will be held at the commission’s Tuesday meeting. One of the most notable changes: Car washes will be prohibited in the Connected City, the county’s northern and southern innovation zones, as well as the community hub special planning areas.

They will also be limited in the Villages of Pasadena Hills development and prohibited in most future land uses that are reserved for employment-generating uses. Because the facilities only produce a handful of jobs, if that, and many are located on what the county considers prime real estate on major roads, the expansion of car washes has been a sticky issue for officials. While the county won’t ban car washes altogether, it will make building them in areas they were previously allowed much more difficult. The county, at the first reading of the ordinance on Sept. 3, sought to require that car washes be subject to additional review standards.

The Local Planning Agency proposed several amendments that the PDE says are consistent with the county’s comprehensive plan. The one that will have the largest impact: bagging a distance-between-car washes requirement and replacing it by making car washes a conditional use, meaning several stringent conditions must be met before approval. “The Local Planning Agency changed it to say all car washes should now be conditional use permits, because we can better control the proximity issue through a conditional use permit process,” said Nectarios Pittos, the county’s director of planning services. Requirements under the conditional use standards include the applicant having to establish a public need and completing an inventory of all car washes within a 5-mile radius of a proposed car wash. Noise limits and appropriate hours of operation will also be implemented, and a decommissioning plan will be established in case the car wash goes out of business.

Also, enhanced buffering and setbacks would be enforced. The new plans also require a neighborhood meeting before approval, although that requirement may not make it into the final version. However, Pittos said it would be required for all car washes. But the effectiveness of neighborhood meetings was debated, and District 3 Commissioner Kathryn Starkey said that standard for car washes seemed “weird to me, because you don’t do a neighborhood meeting for a McDonald’s or.