Doylestown Zoning Board Denies Variance Relief For Route 611 Car Wash

DOYLESTOWN TOWNSHIP, PA — The Doylestown Township Zoning Hearing Board has denied a request for zoning relief that would have allowed a Doylestown couple to turn an aging Route 611 strip shopping center into a car wash.

In a unanimous decision, the board ruled that the applicants failed to meet both the specific and general standards to permit a use E13 car wash by special exception.

The board also ruled that the applicant failed to establish a hardship justifying the relief requested; that the relief sought is not the minimum variance necessary; that the applicant failed to present evidence to warrant the grant of dimensional variances; and that if the variance relief is granted, there will be negative impacts upon surrounding properties or uses.

Jim and Susan Lonergan of Doylestown, the equitable owners of 1796 Easton Road, were seeking a
special exception and a number of dimensional variances to redevelop the 1776 Shopping Center at Edison and Easton roads.

Their plan included subdividing the property into three separate lots, demolishing the existing 13,000-square-foot shopping center, and redeveloping the property with a state-of-the-art drive-through car wash.

An existing Midas Muffler Shop and a 7-11 convenience store would have remained under their plan.

"Everyone knows that property. It's an eyesore and we want to clean it up," Jim Lonergan had told the zoning board back in June. "We want to make the whole property look like it's one property. The landscaping is overgrown and just out of control. We're going to make all the buildings look nice and new and clean. It's going to be like one pleasant place to visit instead of thinking you're coming into this run-down rat hole."

Land use attorney Kellie McGowan, who represented the Lonergan's at the hearing, had argued that the dimensional variances were needed to bring existing lot lines into conformity and to redevelop the shopping center lot.

The couple also needed a special exception to allow a car wash use, which would have replaced the existing shopping center, which currently houses Lil' Dom's Pizzeria, Miles City Vape Shop, All About Vacuums, and a cigar store.

Over the past three years, Jim Lonergan said he and his wife had looked at numerous properties in Bucks and Montgomery counties before finding the Route 611 property.

Doylestown Patch reached out to the Lonergan's land development attorney, Kellie McGowan, for comment on the denial. She provided the following response: "We just recently received the decision and my client is still evaluating his options, so we don’t have any comment for now."