REQUEST FOR CITY COUNCIL ACTION
DATE: June 16, 2021
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
FROM: Community Development Department
SUBJECT:
Title
Conditional Use Permit 2020-0003 is to establish a full, self-service carwash facility for Quick Quack generally located at the southeast corner of Bedford Canyon Road and Eagle Glen Parkway, on property zoned General Commercial by the Arantine Hills Specific Plan.
End
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Conditional Use Permit 2020-0003 (CUP2020-0003) is an application by Quick Quack to establish a full, self-service carwash within the Bedford Marketplace shopping center. The zoning of the property is General Commercial (GC) by the Arantine Hills Specific Plan. The GC zone allows a car wash with the approval of conditional use permit, which is the reason for CUP2020-0003.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Recommended action
That the City Council:
a. Take no action, thereby affirming the Planning and Housing Commission’s action granting CUP2020-0003, based on the findings contained in the staff report and conditions of approval.
OR
b. Set the item for review at a subsequent meeting.
Body
BACKGROUND & HISTORY:
CUP2020-0003 is an application by Quick Quack Carwash to establish a 3,596 square foot carwash within the new Bedford Marketplace commercial center currently under construction. The Bedford Marketplace is located at the southeast corner of Bedford Canyon Road and Eagle Glen Parkway and covers 21.7 acres. The site design for the entire shopping center was approved by the Planning and Housing Commission on July 7, 2020, by Precise Plan 2019-0008 (PP2019-0008). The center was approved for 134,378 square feet of commercial/retail space and a 135-room hotel. The building pad for the proposed carwash was included in the original site design. The zoning of the project site is General Commercial (GC), which permits a carwash with approval of a conditional use permit. CUP2020-0003 is limited to the review of the carwash. All other aspects of the commercial center, including the overall parking, landscaping, architecture, signage, and on-site circulation were reviewed and approved by the center’s previous precise plan application.
ANALYSIS:
Site Plan
The carwash is located within the northwestern portion of the Bedford Marketplace, near the street intersection at Bedford Canyon Road and Eagle Glen Parkway. The Bedford Marketplace has three entrances on Bedford Canyon Road. The carwash is assessable from any one of the three entrances. No driveways are located on Eagle Glen Parkway.
The carwash is designed as an exterior-only express self-service carwash with a drive-through wash tunnel that has fully automated equipment on the interior. The carwash operates with a one-way traffic pattern from start to finish. The entrance into the wash tunnel is located on the north side of the building. The entrance begins as two lanes that lead to the customer payment kiosks. The site plan shows that the lanes can provide vehicle stacking for a total of approximately 19 vehicles from the entrance of the lanes to the payment kiosks. The two lanes merge into a single lane right before the entrance into the wash tunnel. Customers will remain inside the car as they drive through the wash tunnel. The total time through the tunnel is approximately three minutes.
A by-pass exit lane is located right before the entrance of the wash tunnel to allow cars to leave the drive-through lane in the event the customer does not want a carwash. The by-pass exit will be regularly blocked by a chainlink fence that can be removed by an attendant to allow a car to leave the drive-through lane. The applicant will be installing signage at the by-pass exit to direct the customer to make a left turn when leaving the by-pass exit. The left-turn sign is intended to discourage cars from making a sharp right turn into the shopping center’s intersection, which is located right next to the by-pass exit.
At the end of the wash tunnel, customers can either leave the carwash or pull into one of the 15 designated parking spaces which are located on the east side of the building. Customer can dry, vacuum, or perform other finishing services on their own cars underneath a shade cover.
Hours of Operation
The facility will operate seven days a week, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The summertime hours will be from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Each Quick Quack carwash facility typically employs up to 18 staff members, with 2 to 4 staff members working on-site at any given time to operate the facility.
Parking
Based on the city’s parking requirements per the Corona Municipal Code and the uses that are anticipated for the center, 799 parking spaces are required. The center is providing 995 parking spaces, which is a surplus of 196 parking spaces.
Stacking Analysis
The Quick Quack carwash queueing lanes at the Bedford Marketplace will have a similar stacking capacity to the Quick Quack carwash that was approved in July 2020 in the northern part of the City at the northwest corner of Main Street and Parkridge Avenue. The drive-through lanes have a similar design, which includes two queueing lanes before entering the wash tunnel. The lanes can accommodate approximately 18 vehicles to the payment kiosks. The stacking analysis prepared for the Main/Parkridge carwash used data collected from a similar sized Quick Quack carwash located in the City of Moreno Valley. The analysis indicated that the maximum number of cars observed in the queuing lanes for the Moreno Valley carwash was:
• 8 cars on a typical weekday, and
• 10 cars on a typical weekend.
The analysis concluded that since the Main/Parkridge carwash has a stacking capacity for 18 cars, sufficient on-site stacking capacity was provided. Quick Quack’s proposal at the Bedford Marketplace is similar; therefore, the stacking provided by the drive-through lanes is sufficient.
Architecture
The exterior materials of the building include plaster, vertical batten board siding, and stone veneer. The building also incorporates Quick Quack’s signature yellow arch at the entrance and exit of the carwash tunnel. Shade structures are proposed over the drying and vacuum parking spaces that are located on the east side of the carwash building. The shade structures have a standing seam cover and steel posts with a stone veneer wrap to match the stone veneer on the building. Overall, the design of the Quick Quack carwash is consistent with the American Farmhouse architectural theme that is adopted by the Arantine Hills Specific Plan for commercial buildings and approved for the Bedford Marketplace.
Signage
Quick Quack is required to comply with the sign program approved for the Bedford Marketplace, which ensures consistency within the center. The carwash may have exterior wall signs on all four sides of their building. The maximum allowable size of a wall sign on each elevation is based on a formula of 1.25 square feet of sign area per one lineal foot of building frontage.
Quick Quack will be sharing monument and/or pylon signage with the center. The sign program was approved with five multi-tenant monument signs along Bedford Canyon Road and one 40-foot high multi-tenant pylon sign on the center’s east perimeter adjacent to Interstate 15.
Other Municipal Code Requirements
The proposal has been reviewed for compliance with the carwash provisions established under Section 17.72.080 of Corona Municipal Code. The provisions ensure that the carwash is well designed, provides queueing lanes that are adequately marked and don’t interfere with parking and drive aisles, and is set back at least 25 feet from the streets and adjacent residential zones, if any. The applicant’s plans demonstrate that the project is capable of complying with these provisions. Section 17.72.080 also prohibits the carwash from using honking horns, intercoms or any other methods involving noise to notify customers that their car is ready. The Quick Quack carwash does not intend to or have the need to use any amplified noise to notify their customers because the carwash is partially automated and partially self-serviced. The automated wash tunnel allows the customer to remain inside the vehicle at all times while the car is being washed, and customers will be drying, vacuuming, and finishing their own cars.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The applicant paid the application processing fees of $6,985.00 to cover the cost of the Conditional Use Permit application.
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS:
City Council certified a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) on May 20, 2020 (application GPA2019-0002) in conjunction with the Bedford Marketplace. The certified SEIR corresponds with the Arantine Hills Specific Plan Final EIR, certified on August 5, 2012 (SCH #2006091093), a supplement to the Final EIR (May 19, 2016), and an addendum to the Final EIR (December 19, 2018). Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines § 15162(a), the City has determined that no additional environmental review is necessary for the proposed project (CUP2020-0003), as the proposal is consistent with the project and circumstances analyzed under the certified SEIR, and there are no substantial changes nor new information of substantial importance.
PLANNING AND HOUSING COMMISSION ACTION:
At its meeting of May 24, 2021, the Planning and Housing Commission considered the subject matter and took the following action:
Motion was made, seconded (Meza/Sherman) and carried unanimously, that the Planning and Housing Commission adopt Resolution No. 2567 granting CUP2020-0003, based on the findings contained in the staff report and conditions of approval. The minutes of the Planning and Housing Commission meeting are included as Exhibit 4.
PREPARED BY: JOANNE COLETTA, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
Attachments:
1. Exhibit 1 - Locational and zoning map
2. Exhibit 2 - Site plan for CUP2020-0003
3. Exhibit 3 - Planning and Housing Commission staff report
4. Exhibit 4 - Draft minutes of the Planning and Housing Commission meeting of May 24, 2021