Bumpy Road Ahead for Car Wash
If a car wash is allowed to be built at the site of a former discotheque on Montauk Highway in Wainscott, the average wait time to make a left turn from East Gate Road onto the highway would increase from one to six minutes, according to a memo from one of East Hampton Town’s senior planners.
James Golden of Golden Car Wash wants to build a 4,435-square-foot steel and glass building with 15 vacuum stations, a detailing area, space for 18 cars to line up, and nine parking spaces. He needs a special permit from the town planning board to proceed. Judging from the planner’s comments and the volume of letters in opposition, the project is in for a bumpy ride, even if it can get past the East Hampton Town Board’s proposed moratorium on new commercial construction along the highway in Wainscott.
The planning board was scheduled to discuss the site plan for the car wash last night.
Known many years ago as the Swamp, and, after that, as the Star Room, the dilapidated building is now considered unsafe, according to the memo from Eric Schantz, a senior town planner. This is the second time that a car wash has been proposed for the property. The first one, in 2012, did not pan out.
This one has generated staunch opposition in Wainscott. The planning board file contains dozens of letters that are uniformly against the car wash, with writers saying it raises traffic, health, and environmental issues.
“I write you out of serious concern for the health, not just of the wildlife and ecosystems immediately downstream from the applicant’s proposed car wash, but importantly for the health of those who drink water from wells downstream, eat fish and crabs from the ponds downstream, or swim in the waters downstream,” read a letter from Simon Kinsella, a member of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee. Mr. Kinsella, who is the committee’s liaison to the East Hampton Town Trustees, talked to that group about the project on Monday and forwarded to the planning board a letter from Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. In it, Dr. Gobler wrote that the location of the proposed car wash “is highly problematic for the well-being of citizens living on and around Georgica Pond.”
Both Mr. Kinsella and Mr. Schantz pointed out that the traffic study submitted to the planning board appears flawed in that it used data gathered on a weekday in 2013, as opposed to looking at the weekend crush of cars that pass through Wainscott at peak hours in the summer. Mr. Kinsella also pointed out that, in the study’s own words, the corner of East Gate Road and Montauk Highway has a higher accident rate than normal.
John Jilnicki, the town attorney who advises the planning board, said yesterday that the proposed one-year moratorium on development across the entirety of the north side of Montauk Highway in Wainscott would not preclude the applicant and the planning board from continuing work on the proposal over that time. However, a public hearing and final approval of any site plan involving the area would be barred until the moratorium was lifted.
Another Wainscott site plan was on the agenda for discussion last night, that of Barry’s Boot Camp. Located at 352 Montauk Highway, the building is owned by the Wainscott Village Association, which has rented it to the workout studio chain. A Barry’s Bootcamp is already in operation, but is considered an illegal use of the space. The studio needs a special permit from the town to legalize the use the space as an exercise studio.
The problem, in the eyes of the Planning Department, is that there are not nearly enough parking spaces on-site to meet the required number under the town code. Before the planning board can consider the application, Barry’s Boot Camp will have to go before the town’s zoning board of appeals to get a variance from the parking requirements, as well as a special permit.