photo by: Eric Ayres

Wheeling Planning Commission Chairman Jeremy West, left, and member Howard Monroe, participate in a discussion about proposed developments on Mount de Chantal Road.

WHEELING — Efforts are being made to build new businesses in a bustling section of Wheeling, but members of the Wheeling Planning Commission are reluctant to approve plans that will bring any more vehicles to an area that is already jammed with traffic congestion.

During this month’s meeting of the Wheeling Planning Commission, two separate proposals came before the commission for preliminary site plan reviews. Coincidentally, both plans were for proposed developments on properties situated right next to each other — on the north side of Mount de Chantal Road in the Clator neighborhood of Wheeling.

One proposal was a new location for Wash-Rite Express Car Wash. In October, representatives of Wash-Rite requested a zone change for residential property on Diamond Avenue near Figaretti’s Restaurant to build a new car wash. Residents spoke against the proposal during a public hearing last year, and the zone change request was denied.

This month, Wash-Rite proposed a new site near the former location — one that is already zoned C2 Commercial. This site is located on what is currently green space between Mount de Chantal Road and Wheeling Heritage Trail.

Another proposal brought before the Planning Commission would bring a new, larger location for the Eye Care Center of Wheeling to a site literally right next to the proposed car wash site.

Optometrists Dr. Peter Dormas and Dr. Scott Pockl appeared before the Planning Commission for a preliminary site plan review on Monday night to provide details of their plan.

“This is something that has been sort of a goal, a dream of ours to expand care to people of the Ohio Valley,” Dormas said.

The proposal aims at building a 6,200-square-foot, one-story eye care facility that would replace their current offices on Lumber Avenue in Elm Grove. The new building would be able to accommodate more patients and give the business room to grow, basically doubling the size of the current facility. Preliminary plans call for the creation of about 40 parking spaces.

“Right now, I can’t take any new patients,” Pockl said.

The doctors noted that land in Wheeling was difficult to find for new construction projects like this. They noted that they want to be relatively close to their existing office for the convenience of their existing patients. They said they eventually expected to have four or five optometrists working at a time, and would probably start out with three optometrists per day seeing an average of 14 patients per day, with a total of 10 employees.

“Obviously one of the biggest concerns that we have on Mt. Dechantal, as you know, is a two-lane road,” said Councilman Ben Seidler, member of the planning commission. “I take my kids to school every morning, and if I get there in the 8 a.m. range, that exit ramp is literally at a dead stop from Washington Avenue all the way back to the previous on-ramp by Kroger.”

Officials noted that there was one way in and one way out of WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital, and the residents of Clator have firmly expressed their concerns about traffic in this area. Storm water retention is another issue for any potential development in the Clator area, where storm water backup has been an issue in a number of residential properties, planning commission members added.

“It’s just a lot of traffic coming in both directions, and that’s my concern,” Planning Commission Chairman Jeremy West said.

“It is zoned for C2 for commercial development, they’ve met every other requirement for zoning and it’s ripe for development,” said architect Gus Kayafas, speaking on behalf of the Eye Care Center of Wheeling.

While planning commission members stressed how unusual it was to see two different proposals come before them for properties that are literally adjacent to one another, Kayafas urged them not to decide the viability of the Eye Care Center while weighing the potential impact of the car wash, which had not been approved or developed yet.

Kayafas noted that if the preliminary site plan were to be approved, the parties would move forward with geotechnical surveys and other legwork that would be costly.

“We’d hate to spend $50,000, and when we come back to this board, hear you say, ‘oh, we don’t like this traffic,'” Kayafas said. “It could be $10,000 to $20,000 for a traffic study. If the traffic study comes back unfavorable, you can never develop these pieces of property. You might as well change them from C2 to a park.”

The exit from Interstate 70 at Washington Avenue is one of the busiest areas in the city in terms of steady traffic.

“It looks like Festival of Lights traffic,” Assistant City Solicitor Howard Klatt said. “Citizens were very vocal about the traffic.”

This month’s meeting was filled with concerned citizens who came to listen to the proceedings, but West noted that since there was no public hearing associated with the preliminary site plan reviews, no citizens would have a format to speak at this step in the process.

“I’m not comfortable with the traffic situation at all,” planning commission member Howard Monroe said.

The commission followed the recommendation of the staff to grant preliminary site plan approval, but they did so with the condition that both a traffic study and a stormwater control plan be submitted for review.

Representatives of Wash-Rite also sought preliminary site plan approval at a piece of property right next to the proposed eye center.

Frank Deoring, owner, Andrew Crum, representing Wash-Rite Express Car Wash noted that they have opened several successful car washes like this in areas all over the Ohio Valley and beyond.

“We’ve done a lot of these,” Deoring said. “We’ve built over 100 of these car washes. We’ve been in all different cities big and small, and communities just like yours.”

Deoring said the new site on Mt. Dechantal Road was selected to address some of the previous concerns aired last October when a previous plan was rejected.

While the new site is zoned C2 Commercial, officials continue to express concerns about the impact additional traffic could have on this area.

The commission denied the request for preliminary site plan approval for the car wash based on insufficient information. Officials noted that numbers from a traffic study will likely show that this road cannot handle additional traffic that the car wash would attract.

“This road is a critical path,” Seidler said. “This is the wrong place to put this.”

Seidler noted that back in October when Wash-Rite were looking to open a new car wash near Figaretti’s in Clator, the area had two local hospitals with active emergency rooms. There is now one local hospital since East Ohio Regional Hospital recently closed, making open access to WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital even more vital, he said.