Wainscotters Say ‘No Way’ to Car Wash
The East Hampton Town Planning Board faced a stormy, three-hour session at Town Hall on Sept. 14 when a site plan for a proposed car wash in Wainscott came before it.
James Golden wants to put up a 4,435-square-foot steel and glass building with 15 vacuum stations. The facility, which requires a permit from the board, would have a detailing area, room for 18 cars to line up, and nine parking spaces. The property now contains a former discotheque, which has fallen into disrepair and is considered unsafe.
As the initial discussion went around the table, and after a lengthy presentation by experts representing Mr. Golden who told the board he had already invested $75,000 for an analysis, Job Potter, a board member, said, “I feel badly for you, in a way. This is a bad place for a car wash.” The room exploded with applause.
“As chairman of this board, I have to think of planning,” Reed Jones said. “I don’t think it fits. This is the most congested part of town,” he said, as the room again broke into applause.
According to a traffic study presented to the board by Mr. Golden, the time it would take to make a left turn onto the highway from the car wash would increase from about one minute during the summer to six minutes. But Eric Schantz, a senior town planner, had previously said the traffic study submitted was outdated and had not been done during the peak summer season.
Besides the traffic study, the board has been presented with studies of the sound emanating from the car wash and its ecological impacts.
Before the board could consider the details further, Mr. Golden complained that the room had been stacked against him. If he had known that would be the case, he could have had 100 supporters on hand, he said.
“Is there a business you would want to see?” asked Gail Golden. “What business would make you all feel good?”
Diana Weir, a board member, responded that a neighborhood business would be appropriate, but Ms. Golden said, “I don’t think HomeGoods fits into a neighborhood business,” referring to the large nearby retail store on the Montauk Highway, which had received board approval. “No, it’s not,” Ms. Weir said.
“It was all before your time, I get it,” Ms. Golden retorted. “We live here, too.”
She went on, saying, “If you had this feeling from the beginning, you did us a great disservice by asking us to do all these studies, which cost us $75,000. You should have right from the start said, ‘No, we will never approve a car wash,’ because we would not have proceeded. That’s on you, and not on us. Secondly, this is supposed to be a working meeting, not a meeting where people can voice their opinions. That’s the format you set up. I think it is unfair that the room is filled, stacked with people who oppose it.”
The car wash proposal had been in the news previously and drawn the attention of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee. Ms. Weir asked those in the audience if the planning board had invited them. They responded with a loud, “No!”
Ms. Weir, who has been on the planning board since 2012, pointed out that this was only the second time the proposal had come before the planning board. She added, however, that if the applicant was unhappy with whatever the final decision turned out to be, he could sue the board.
Kathleen Cunningham, a board member who called herself “agnostic” with regard to the proposal, said that given the site’s zoning, “We are going to have to approve some kind of business.” Nancy Keeshan, another member, said, “We haven’t made a decision.”
When the Wainscott residents were given an opportunity to make brief statements, over a dozen made it clear that they thought the proposal was unacceptable. Several mentioned the HomeGoods store.
“A few years ago, another planning board gave an approval,” Frank Dalene said, referring to HomeGoods, and calling it “an approval for the biggest boondoggle in East Hampton history. . . . We can’t afford another screw-up,” he said.