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McALLEN — The City of Palms has become the latest in the Rio Grande Valley to consider imposing restrictions on commercial car washes amid a growing water scarcity crisis.
This week, the McAllen City Commission mulled a proposal that would place distance restrictions on the development of new car washes, making McAllen the fourth city to consider such a move this year.
“Some time ago, the commission asked us to look into how the city might better regulate the proliferation of car washes throughout the city, and so, as part of the development of the Unified Development Code, that was part of that work,” McAllen City Manager Isaac Tawil said during a commission workshop on Monday.
The city manager was referring to an ongoing effort to enact a massive overhaul of McAllen’s land development ordinances toward one that officials hope will be easier to understand and promote more metropolitan-style mixed use development.
New rules for commercial car washes are a part of that effort, which the city has dubbed the “Unified Development Code” or UDC.
But as city officials continue to seek public input on that larger proposal, they wanted to take the commission’s pulse on another topic that has drawn interest throughout the region — the ubiquity of commercial car washes.
The move comes after the cities of Edinburg and Brownsville implemented such limitations within their own city limits, while a similar effort in Harlingen failed.
Currently, there are three dozen automated commercial car washes within McAllen, according to Planning Director Edgar Garcia.
They are facilities that are not part of a gas station or car dealership. The majority of them exist in the densely populated areas of town east of Ware Roads, and between Trenton Road to the north, El Rancho Road to the south.
Garcia said how, just last month, Edinburg implemented an ordinance that restricts the development of new automated car washes to areas that are two miles or more from existing ones.
All new facilities would also have to use water recycling technology to minimize waste.
Similarly, in April, Brownsville officials limited new car washes to a five-mile radius from existing locations.
In McAllen, city planners explored several options, including how two-mile and five-mile restrictions would impact car washes here.
Such options would limit car washes to the farthest stretches of the city — to the master planned Tres Lagos community to the north, and south to the U.S.-Mexico border, Garcia said.
But city staffers also looked at a half-mile option, as well as a hybrid option that’s currently a part of the proposed UDC.
“They’re proposing a 1,000-foot distance from any other car wash, and a 150-foot distance from any residential zone,” Garcia said.
“With those two things together, it would limit car washes basically to the expressway, certain sections of 10th, Nolana, the eastern side of Pecan, and then our industrial areas down south,” Garcia said.
As for water recycling or reclamation provisions, the city’s current ordinances already require that, officials said.
But some members of the commission worried that implementing any restrictions would infringe on the rights of landowners to use their properties as they see fit.
Mayor Javier Villalobos said it’s not something the city does with other types of commercial developments, such as restaurants.
But others disagreed.
District 5 Commissioner Victor “Seby” Haddad reminded his colleagues that McAllen already has rules that limits or severely curtails the establishment of adult entertainment venues.
Currently, no such businesses, such as gentlemen’s clubs, exist in McAllen.
And interim McAllen City Attorney Austin Stevenson said that the commission has “broad” authority to regulate development under the Texas Constitution.
“The city does have the authority to chime in and regulate a specific use, such as car washes, because it relates to the general health, public safety and welfare. And it falls under the city’s broad zoning authority,” Stevenson said.
Still, the mayor seemed apprehensive.
“I’m not crazy about all the car washes all over the place, but, I also understand that we don’t want to infringe on people’s rights to develop their own properties,” Villalobos said.
Other commissioners expressed concerns about how restrictions could limit the development of new car washes along major thoroughfares, or how they could give unfair advantage to existing facilities that were developed before the legislation changed.
Haddad, meanwhile, shared a different concern about existing car washes — namely, what happens to them after they’re no longer useful.
“They cannot convert into anything else. Literally cannot be anything else,” Haddad said.
“And it’s unlikely that, once they run their life of use, someone’s gonna re-establish it. And so, we have to plan for that to some extent, that we don’t want pieces of our city falling into decay,” he said.
Ultimately, the commission chose not to make any decisions on Monday night. Instead, they plan to gather more information — both from city staffers, and from the public.
The matter is slated to be included in a series of town halls that McAllen officials plan to hold in all six commission districts to seek the public’s inputs about the Unified Development Code.
The dates and locations of those town halls have yet to be announced.
