West Hollywood residents concerned over automated car wash proposal

The owner of a Chevron gas station in West Hollywood is set to put a new automated car wash in, but area residents aren’t so sure that’s a good idea. 

The location is 1107 North La Cienega Boulevard – which is located on the corner of La Cienega and Holloway Drive just up the street from the famous Barney’s Beanery – is half a block north of Santa Monica Boulevard and about a block south of the Sunset Strip.

The current site is already a Chevron gas station with an auto service center and food mart, but the gas station company is looking to renovate it and add an automated car wash. Both the auto service center and the food mart would be removed, according to construction plans.

Jerome Cleary, a West Hollywood small business owner who is also a columnist for the West Hollywood Independent and blogger for Patch West Hollywood, says the main problem will be an increase of traffic in an already congested area. 

"We're not happy...the residents feel like opening up a car wash that's going to create gridlock in an intersection with an F rating [is not a good idea]," Cleary told KTLA. "We feel that having cars idling 12 hours a day and waiting in line for hours for a cheap $10 car wash is a disaster for this neighborhood."

"There are a lot of things going on where people will be directly affected," he added.

On Wednesday, concerned WeHo residents attended a community meeting at the gas station to express their concerns to the site owner, who was accompanied by his construction team and a Code Enforcement representative with the City of West Hollywood.

"I understand this is a business, but it does impact us as homeowners," one woman said, noting that there are elderly people, children and people with disabilities living in the area. "[We are] the people who have to deal with the increased traffic."

The owner, who declined to go on camera, told KTLA 5's Kimberly Cheng that the construction received approval by the City of West Hollywood in 2020 and that a traffic engineer looked into the plans before they were approved.

He says that he has hundreds of customers who support the renovation and recommended that concerned residents reach out to the city itself.

Residents, however, say they did not receive any notification of the construction and also allege that environmental and traffic impact studies were waived during the approval process, meaning they don't know the true impact the new structure could have.

The community meeting is scheduled to last until 1 p.m. for residents to voice their concerns and ask questions.

If the process goes through, construction on the new structure is expected to begin after the holidays and last several months.