From: Orlando Ramirez
To: Jose Valenzuela
Cc: Seth Ramirez; Moe Assad
Subject: Re: Xpress Carwash Outreach Summary
Date: Friday, April 28, 2023 2:16:14 PM
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Met at the offices of McCormick-Barstow
4/12/23
Surf Thru Team:
Moe Assad
Patrick
Orlando Ramirez
Seth Ramirez
Appeal team:
Commercial Center Owner/Property Manager
Chris - Mcormick Barstow Attorney
Zach Kaufman
We the applicants of the Surf Thru project met with the owner of the adjacent office complex along with his broker and attorney. Our goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the opposing party's perceived detrimental impacts that the car wash would have. Their main concerns stem from the idea that traffic and noise will be greatly increased due to car wash operations and clientele. Additionally, they are concerned that the placement of the proposed car wash will diminish their own property values and create an eyesore for their own clients and customers. After discussing that we have taken all the necessary measures to insure that our project mitigates all sound, traffic and compatibility issues - they still strongly oppose our project. We were told that unless we brought forward a project that they would like to see for that parcel, they would pursue a CEQA lawsuit that would require us to perform a full EIR on the site. We asked them to provide us a list of uses that they could potentially support and we would consider them if it made financial sense.
4/25/2023
Met onsite at Rivendell
Appeal Team:
Xamy Yang
Xamy's Spouse
8 Rivendell Staff/Volunteers/Tenants
Shun - Prestige accounting (Tenant)
Chris- Mcormick Barstow
Surf Thru Team:
Moe Assad
Orlando Ramirez
Seth Ramirez
This meeting was facilitated by our team as directed by the Planning Commission to hear out any concerns directly from the tenants and try to make concessions in an effort to satisfy them.
The appellants continue to feel that due to the sensitive nature of the special needs clients they serve, a car wash would create an unsafe environment for them due to increased noise and traffic. Our meeting was held on-site of the proposed project and in the span of an hour, the overhead noise from aircraft as well as traffic along Mckinley Avenue is already greater than the noise from the proposed car wash would ever produce at full operation - this is proven in the noise study we commissioned.
To mitigate their concern of traffic, we offered to redesign the site in a way that would discourage or at least minimize car wash clients from ingressing and egressing our site from any of our neighbors' parking lots. We also offered to remove a few of the proposed vacuum stations on our property and turn them into parking stalls for the accounting and real estate firms located behind our site.
Overall this meeting had a more positive tone, but despite our offer to make concessions, the opposition still feels that a car wash would not be good for the area due to traffic and noise.
They did however express support if we wanted to propose a drive thru coffee shop or restaurant. However, those uses would propose a greater volume of average daily traffic (nearly double) according to the ITE trip generation manual.
To: Jose Valenzuela
From: Gerry Mirassou
On Wednesday April 12th, myself, my atorney, Christopher Hall and my real estate broker, Zack Kaufman met with the developers of the proposed car wash, Mohammad Assad, his father, his consultant, Orlando Ramirez and his real estate broker at the office of Christopher Hall. We reiterated our concerns regarding the impact of the project on Airport Village, i.e., using our parcel to accommodate their use and the impacts the car wash would have on our exis�ng and future use of the property. We also ques�oned them on why we were not no�fied during the planning stages of the project so as to avoid the present conflicts between the two sides. A�er approximately an hour and a half of discussion we concluded the mee�ng with no progress toward a resolu�on of our differences.
Although they offered to remove two of the vacuum stalls along the driveway and convert them to handicap parking spaces to mi�gate their use of our property we were resolute in our insistence that they cannot use our site at all to develop their car wash. They cannot remove parking spaces, change the driveway loca�on or relocate the handicap parking spaces. We also stated that the car wash would disturb exis�ng tenants of our building due to noise from the car wash machinery, radios, and constant automobile traffic and stacking.
We emphasized that the car wash is not compa�ble with our current uses or other poten�al uses allowed in Airport Village and that their proposal to remove spaces from our site would severely limit future uses since we would not be able to meet parking requirements. Furthermore, we emphasized that approval of the car wash conflicts with SEC, 15- 1301 PURPOSE (Employment Districts) of the Fresno Municipal Code which states that uses is these zones “provide for the appropriate location of businesses that may have the potential to generate offsite impacts, while providing to ensure compatibility in use and form with existing and planned uses.” We strongly asserted that the proposed car wash is not compa�ble to our use and should be a reason for denial. They stated that the car wash would help us because it would bring in more traffic.
The developers asked us that since we were opposed to the car wash, what other uses might we agree to. We men�oned that a sandwich shop, coffee shop or retail business would be compa�ble uses as that was what the original site development plan for the parcels envisioned. During our discussion of poten�al uses, if not a car wash, we discussed that us buying their parcel was a possibility; however, the price they men�oned was too far out of line for our considera�on. We were somewhat surprised that they offered to sell the property since they stated that they had a solid deal with the Surf Thru company. It makes us wonder if they really do have a deal with Surf Thru or if they are just using this proposal as a pretext to leverage a sale to us.
As far as I recall, these were the salient points of our mee�ng with the developers of the proposed car wash. We steadfastly oppose its approval and considerate its nega�ve impacts to our property very significant and contrary to Sec.15-1301 PURPOSE (Employment Districts). Approval of this car wash project would, in effect, severely limit the use of our property now and in the future.
Thank you for your considera�on of this mater and we are available to answer further ques�on or provide further informa�on.
Sincerely,
Gerry Mirassou. Co-owner of Airport Village