Panel ponders permit for car wash

Project approved by Design Review Board

At its meeting today, the city of Ukiah’s Planning Commission will consider approving a permit for a car wash business and apartment on a long-vacant property at the intersection of Observatory Avenue and South State Street.

According to the staff report prepared for the Dec. 8 meeting, the applicant for “Ukiah Car Wash” is Enrique Espinoza, described as “operating car wash businesses in Ukiah since 1998,” and as having “outgrown the space he leases and now has eight employees who hand wash and detail cars.”

Planning staff describe the proposed business as including “the development of two adjacent undeveloped parcels owned by Joe Crudo into a 2,286 square-foot car wash (includes hand wash and canopy area), a 1,152-squarefoot self-serve covered vacuum station area, 2,856 square-foot auto-shop, a two-story mixed-use office building with 608 squarefoot downstairs office space, and a 617 square-foot second story, one-bedroom apartment.”

City staff estimate “that the site has been vacant nearly 20 years; immediately to the south of the subject property is a multistory hotel, while to the north is a gas station and convenience store. A homeless resource center is located on the opposite side of South State Street, and to the west there is a multi-family housing development.”

The Design Review Board recommended the project, though during its meeting members of the public suggested different trees for the landscaping:”in particular, Krauter Vesuvius, Purple Leaf Plum, Coral Beauty Cotoneaster, and Green Showers Bos

ton Ivy were cited as inappropriate.”

Therefore, city planning staff recommended approval of a permit for the business, but “as a Condition of Approval, staff requires that the applicant submit for the review and approval of the Director of the Community Development Department a ‘Final Landscaping Plan’ to ensure the appropriateness of selected landscaping and trees in conformance with the findings of the Design Review Board.”

Join the virtual meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. Dec. 8, with the link below: https://zoom.us/j/ 91264543193?pwd=wxha TWMXZFVGUZKXYKNDUGRJV04YQT09 Passcode: 913114.

Or join via telephone by dialing: +1 669 900 9128, or +1 346 248 7799.