Car Wash Tossed to Side

A dark cloud over a proposed car wash in Wainscott grew darker on April 19, when the East Hampton Town Planning Board, by a 5-to-1 vote, asked the Planning Department to prepare a memorandum examining the environmental impact of the proposal. If the memo finds that the project could have a negative impact, the planning board is likely to require that the applicant, James Golden, have a detailed study prepared under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, requiring time and money.

The car wash would be on a 1.2-acre site on the northeast corner of Montauk Highway and East Gate Road, where a dilapidated building was once a discotheque known most recently as the Star Room and before that, the Swamp. The building has been vacant for many years. The April 19 meeting was the third over the last year at which a site plan for the car wash has been discussed. Neighbors have been vehement in opposition, citing both traffic and potential environmental impacts.

The application for site plan approval received preliminary review by the board a year ago, at a meeting in which several neighbors spoke out and board members questioned the location. A follow-up meeting in September was more contentious, with opponents packing Town Hall.

At that time, Job Potter, a planning board member, said, “This is a bad place for a car,” and the room exploded with applause. Mr. Potter has since become the board’s chairman. He was absent on April 19, but his sentiment was omnipresent. “You’re going against the tide,” Randy Parsons said to Mr. Golden during an exchange. “There is nowhere in the town that this would work.” He expressed concern that Mr. Golden was wasting his time and money.

Mr. Golden complained about spending $150,000 in an effort to make his plan a reality. He said there was a need for a car wash in East Hampton, and that if it were built, all the members of the board would use it. He said he is in contract to purchase the property, pending board approval. Without approval, “You can’t justify $3 million for 1.2 acres,” he said. He called the location viable because of heavy traffic. “Montauk Highway is a state road. How are we going to overcome this traffic thing? I can’t keep throwing money at the fire.”

Mr. Golden is the owner of JJG Management, a limited liability company with a Doylestown, Pa., address. His sister, Gail Golden, apparently is a corporate partner. She was not in attendance on April 19.

Looming over the conversation was the Home Goods store, approved by the board in 2012, which is west of the proposed car wash. Opponents have said that store has had a negative effect on traffic in Wainscott, as well as on the visual appearance of what they refer to as the “gateway to East Hampton.”

Mr. Golden, however, asked why he should have to go through a process that the Home Goods developer, the late Greg Saunders, did not. “This is cumulative,” Diana Weir, a board member, responded. “When Home Goods was proposed, this was not developed.”

The only planning board member who did not agree the Planning Department should prepare an environmental impact memo was Ian Calder-Piedmonte, who expressed concern about the possibility of requiring a State Environmental Quality Review Act study. “Once we make a positive declaration, that doesn’t go away easily. If we do it here, I think we’re going to have to think carefully about where else.” He also said the board needed to be consistent.

“There is value in consistency, but things change,” Kathleen Cunningham responded. “Another use might be more compatible with this site.”

Carl Irace, an attorney representing a group of neighbors, also addressed the board. “We have concerns about the traffic, but we also have concerns about the chemicals used for a car wash. We’re concerned about the chemicals stored on site that would be used.”

Mr. Golden has told the board that the facility would recycle water, which would then be taken off the premises, thereby avoiding any pollution of nearby Georgica Pond. Mr. Irace was not mollified. “You are taking a precious resource, our groundwater. You are taking it from us, putting it in a tank, putting it on a truck and hauling it away to somewhere else,” he said, asking, “Why exploit the resource like that? How does it make sense to contaminate our water and dump it on someone else?”

Meanwhile, another car wash has been proposed by a different group for a site on Springs-Fireplace Road between the entrance and exit of the town recycling center. That proposal has also sparked neighbors’ angst, but the proposal appears stalled.