Finkle + Williams Architecture
A rendering of a proposed Club Car Wash for Lien Road.
A rendering of a proposed Club Car Wash for Lien Road.
In a first test of a new city zoning ordinance designed to promote transit and dense development, a car wash chain is asking the Madison city council to override a decision by the Plan Commission and allow it to build a new car wash at 3913 Lien Road.
When asked if the company would consider legal action, Kendell Palmquist, director of marketing for Club Car Wash, tells Isthmus “we do intend to appeal to the circuit court if the appeal before the Common Council is denied.”
The Plan Commission voted unanimously on Aug. 28 to place the company’s application for a conditional use permit on file.
In urging the commission to reject the proposed car wash near the intersection of East Washington Avenue, Ald. Derek Field, a member of the commission, said the car-oriented nature of the business was not compatible with the goals of the city’s new Transit-Oriented Development overlay district, meant to promote transit use, bicycling and walking.
A car wash would “bring vehicle trips and vehicle traffic to this parcel and its access streets by the very definition of the service it provides while also not supporting any other modes of transportation,” Field said.
The city council will consider the company’s appeal of the Plan Commission decision on Oct. 3. Two-thirds of the council must vote to overturn the Plan Commission.
In a Sept. 7 appeal letter to the city council, Gregory Everts, a lawyer for Club Car Wash, alleges the Plan Commission broke state law by denying a permit for the company. Everts says the 2017 law restricts the ability of the city to deny conditional use permits. He also notes that city staff recommended approval of the project with conditions, and the company was willing to meet those conditions. Therefore, argues Everts, “approval of the application is mandatory” under state law.
“We were surprised and disappointed that the planning commission denied our application for a [conditional use permit], particularly in light of a relatively new law enacted in Wisconsin which mandates the issuance of CUPs by municipalities where applicants meet the standards set forth in local ordinances," added Justin Barnes, Club Car Wash’s vice president of development, in a Sept. 28 news release.
The Missouri company, which currently operates six other car washes in Wisconsin and 137 in the central United States, said in its appeal letter that the denial “is erroneous, unfair, and arbitrary because it is based on supposition rather than evidence.” Instead of bringing new car trips to the area, Club Car Wash contends it would pull from shoppers already driving to Hy-Vee, Aldi and other nearby retailers.
A goal of the TOD ordinance is to concentrate the most intense development near the city’s bus rapid transit routes.
Chris Wells, development review planner for the city of Madison, said at the Plan Commission meeting that “the use as proposed [by Club Car Wash] is not precluded by the recently adopted TOD ordinance.”
But Field said a car wash at the Lien Road site could make it less attractive for the kind of large housing and mixed use developments that the city wants to see nearby.
The community, he said, has “grand hopes for active uses in the neighborhood, amenities for this corridor that I think will be less likely with a large auto-oriented car wash on the site.”
Former Ald. Erik Paulson, who previously represented the area, weighed in against the project in an Aug. 27 letter to the Plan Commission. “More intensive housing will be more difficult to achieve with a large car wash at this site,” wrote Paulson. “It will be difficult for projects to make economic sense if the rents their units can command will be depressed by having a car wash so close.”
