FRESNO, CA — Fresno planning officials confronted a potential municipal emergency Wednesday while considering whether approximately 0.84 acres of vacant land near Copper Avenue should be transformed into something the city desperately lacks: another automated car wash.
The proposal calls for a roughly 3,500-square-foot car-wash facility with an approximately 2,813-square-foot canopy on land between Maple and Cedar avenues.
Planning documents require a General Plan amendment, rezoning, conditional-use approval, and environmental review before residents can finally obtain access to this exceedingly rare form of Fresno commerce.
“This is about preparing for the future,” explained one development consultant. “There may eventually be a vehicle in northeast Fresno that is more than six minutes away from a place called something like Mister Bubbles, Surf Thru, Quick Quack, Red Carpet, or Splash N’ Dash. We cannot allow that.”
Urban planners noted that automated car washes provide several essential community services, including washing cars and reminding residents that whatever business they thought was being constructed on a vacant parcel is actually a car wash.
The proposal underwent the same rigorous land-use process Fresno applies to other major developments.
At press time, the vacant property remained dangerously undeveloped and therefore technically capable of becoming housing, a restaurant, a bookstore, or anything else useful.