Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Good evening and welcome to the City of Hayward Planning Commission meeting for 01/08/2026. We are holding a hybrid meeting with some participants in the council chambers and others who have joined virtually via zoom. This meeting is being webcast on Comcast TV channel 15 and live streamed on the city's YouTube channel and on the city's website. This meeting is called to order at 07:03PM. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance.

Thank you. Ms. Allen, will you please call roll? Good evening. Commissioner Goodbody? Present. Commissioner Hammond?

Present.

Commissioner Lowe? Here. Commissioner Myers absent. Commissioner Stevens?

Here.

Commissioner Yorgov? Here. Chair Hardy? Present. Just wanted to mention that we are using a new system tonight for our meeting and so please bear with us if we are a little bit slow or just getting used to things and this is a great new system of it's free to the city we're very excited to be using it but again please bear with us if we're just a little bit slow in getting used to it.

But now we will move on to our public comment section of the agenda. We will now open public comments on non agenda items. Section provides an opportunity to address the Planning Commission on items not listed on the agenda. The Commission welcomes comments and requests that speakers present their remarks in a respectful manner within established time limits and focused on issues which directly affect the city or are within the jurisdiction of the city. As the commission is prohibited by state law from discussing items not listed on the agenda, your item will be taken into consideration and may be referred to staff for further action.

Speakers shall not use threatening profane or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a commission meeting. The city is committed to maintaining a workplace free of unlawful harassment and is mindful that city staff regularly attend commission meetings. Discriminatory statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, or abusive are per se disruptive to a meeting will not be tolerated. I do not see any public comments for this item and so we will go ahead and close public comments and move on to our first action item of the evening. The commission will permit comment as each action item is called for public hearing.

Please submit a speaker card to our secretary miss Allen if you wish to speak on a public hearing item. For agenda item number one, the decision of the Planning Commission is final unless appealed. The appeal period is ten days from the date of the decision. If appealed a public hearing will be scheduled before the City Council for final decision. Item one is a proposal to replace one of six existing self-service bays with touch free automatic car wash equipment at Bubble Machine Car Wash at 22235 Mission Boulevard requiring a conditional use permit.

Applicants Melvin Higginbotham, MHA design services owner Prem Kumar. And I will now turn it over to staff for a presentation.

Thank you. Good evening and happy new year, chair and commissioners in Hayward community. My name is Duso Cholla, assistant planner with the city of Hayward planning division. Tonight we'll be reviewing a conditional use permit to replace one of six existing self-service bays with touch free automatic car wash equipment at Bubble Machine Car Wash at 22235 Mission Boulevard. Bubble Machine Car Wash is located along the Southwestern Side Of Mission Boulevard between Simon Street and Gray Street.

The project site is surrounded by a mix of residential and commercial uses and is adjacent to a motorcycle shop and detached residential homes. The site has two driveways providing access to the car wash, one from Pier Street and one from Mission Boulevard. Zooming in, the existing 3,549 square foot car wash is located on a point 37 acre parcel and includes six self-service bays and six vacuum equipped parking stalls. With masonry walls and wood fences of various heights constructed along portions of the property lines shared with the adjacent residential properties. The masonry wall features a variety of artwork and range in height from five to 16 feet.

The project site is zoned Mission Boulevard Corridor neighborhood, which allows drive in establishments including car washes with a conditional use permit. Similarly, service uses are permitted by the site's general plan land use designation of sustainable mixed use. Later in this presentation, I will discuss the general plan policies that are also consistent with the project. The car wash use on the subject property dates back to 1965 when the city first approved the construction of the self-service car wash. At that time, a CUP for the car wash was not required, so the use is considered to be legal nonconforming to current code requirements.

From 2002 to 2022, the car wash operated as tiny bubble machine under different ownership. In June 2022, Prem Kumar and Mohit Thinde assumed ownership and rebranded the self-service car wash as bubble machine car wash. To date, the owners have made several site improvements, including installing exterior lighting to enhance visibility, adding security cameras featuring two way audio for twenty four hour surveillance, and repaving the site. The applicant is proposing to convert one of the six existing self-service bays into a touch free automatic car wash bay to expand services and offer touchless automatic washes. The proposed automatic car wash bay would be located next to the motorcycle shop and is shown in red on the slide.

The closest home shown in green are owned by the car owner, Prem Kumar. The site provides queue space for up to five vehicles and vehicles would enter from Mission Boulevard and exit towards Pierce Street. The proposal to add touchless automatic washes requires approval of a conditional use permit since it would intensify the legal nonconforming car wash use. Per the city's noise ordinance, noise levels at the property line may not exceed 70 dBA between 7AM and 9PM, and 60 dBA between 9PM and 7AM. A noise study prepared by Bollard Acusico consultants found that the proposed automatic car wash equipment complies with the noise ordinance without requiring noise mitigation measures, provided it operates between 7AM and 9PM.

Although the noise study concluded noise mitigation is not required, the Hayward Municipal Code requires the applicant replace the existing wooden fence along the shared property property lines with 22240 Pierce Street with a new masonry wall. This new masonry wall will further reduce noise levels. Bubble Machine Car Wash will expand its services to offer touchless automatic washes. The remaining five bays will continue to operate as self-service base, and the six vacuum stalls will remain available for customer use. To align with the noise study, hours of operation for all six bays will be reduced from twenty four hours a day to seven AM to 9PM daily.

The business will continue to operate without on-site employees with the owners performing weekly maintenance and restocking. However, I would like to make it known that earlier today, the owner did share with me that they typically visit the car wash every single day. With that, I wanted to share this map showing the location of the eight stand alone car washes operating in the city of Hayward, including Bubble Machine Car Wash. Of these, Mission Car Wash located 1.3 miles away from Bubble Machine Car Wash is the only stand alone car wash that offers hand wash services. All others are either self-service or use automatic car wash equipment that makes direct contact with vehicles.

If approved, Bubble Machine Car Wash will become the first stand alone car wash in Hayward to offer touch free automatic car wash services. To ensure the car wash will operate operate in harmony with adjacent uses, staff has added several conditions of approval. I want to highlight a couple of these with you tonight. First, all vehicles will be required to queue on-site to prevent vehicles from encroaching into or blocking the public right away, including sidewalks and travel lanes. Second, the car wash will no longer operate twenty four hours per day and will be required to operate between 7AM and 9PM.

In addition, a new masonry wall will be constructed on-site to replace the existing wooden fence, which will further reduce noise levels. These conditions are in place to minimize potential impacts on neighboring properties. The proposal to add touchless automatic car wash equipment is consistent with several economic development and land use policies within the Hayward 2040 general plan. These policies collectively support encouraging compatible commercial development that strengthens the local economy and provides convenient services. With that, staff is recommending that the planning commission approve the proposed conditional use permit to replace one of the six existing self-service base with touch free automatic car wash equipment based on the draft findings and subject to the recommended conditions of approval.

The applicant team and I are here to answer any questions you may have. The applicant team includes architect Meldon Higginbottom and property owners Prem Kumar and Mohit Thinde. Thank you.

Thank you assistant planner Ochoa. And is there any presentation I know you just said that they're available for for questions but did the did anyone else want to make a presentation? Okay, so we will now open for Commissioner questions for the staff or for the applicant or developer and Commissioner Lowe.

Thank you, and thank you for your presentation. My question is, in the staff report, it said that the public outreach that happened back on 05/09/2025, there was one complaint, and I didn't see that in the materials. And I was wondering if there was a letter or what form that took.

Yeah. We got a email, like, when the notice of receipt went out, and, it's basically summarized in the staff report. It was regarding noise and loitering and trash, yeah, and traffic concerns.

Okay. It's just I'm used to seeing the actual letter or email in the materials, so I was just curious as to the contents. Thank you. That's all I have.

Commissioner Hammond.

Yes, good evening. So let me see. In the staff report under background, the use of this car wash is considered to be legal non conforming. What are they allowed to continue to do that a newly constructed car wash would not be able to do?

That's a good question. So it was built in 1965. So it was built the car wash was built to the standards, the code that was back then. Right? So it's legal, not conforming to whenever it happened 1965. So a car wash of today's, for example a good example is a masonry wall. So today if a new car wash were to go next to some residential, the code requires that they have a masonry wall, like, with that property line sharing with residents. Right? Like a residential use. This car wash was constructed when that probably wasn't in the code. So that's something that's like legal nonconforming, right? They're legal nonconforming in that aspect. But today, if a new car wash were to go in next to some residential, they would have to have that masonry wall from the get go.

Okay. So then how are you addressing ADA accessibility?

Well, one of the conditions of approval from engineering is actually that they're gonna have to replace one of the driveways on Pier Street to make the ADA.

So does it also mean that the point of sales devices for payment need to be ADA compliant?

I'll defer to the planning manager on that one.

Typically, you have an existing the only physical changes happening, there's not a nexus to require the entire site be ADA if it's currently deficient. We would just have to guarantee that any of the improvements meet current code.

So that wouldn't affect the bathroom? I'm guessing that's not a public bathroom, it's a private bathroom.

We can ask the applicant. I don't have information on that.

You can come up to the microphone. Could you push the button Thank on the you. Oh, go ahead.

Is it

good now? Yes.

Okay. Hi, everyone. Nice to meet you. My name is Mohit Tinda. That's my dad, Prem Kumar. And happy New Year, and it's nice to meet you for the first time. We have one employee private bathroom. We have no public bathrooms because it's a self-service car wash, and public bathrooms would be a little bit more complicated to do in that type of an environment for us. Yes.

So do you plan on making any ADA improvements on the property besides the driveway? No. And what exactly makes the Driveway ADA compliant? What makes the Driveway?

I'm Melvin Higginbotham, I'm the architect on the project. So the driveway that Bell Save mentioned is the one on Pierce Street. What makes it ADA compliant is the sidewalk that comes on either side of driveway will maintain accessibility standards all the way across the driveway. So that way, even though whatever condition the sidewalk is in now is kind of irrelevant. The idea is someday the sidewalk might be improved, right?

So for our development that portion of the driveway will be, it'll be new, it'll be free of potholes and cracks and such, and it will have the approved accessibility slopes, cross slopes for any walkway. And so if those other sidewalks were continued on by other developments and such in the future, would not, this would allow a cohesive pathway that is accessible. We're not really required to, just by adding the automatic car wash on the site, we're not really required to make any AD upgrades. And if we, if by some chance we were, like during the the course of, like like sometimes you may not know that at at this level, but when you go through the course of the permit plan check for the construction documents, if any of those requirements were to be raised during that process, then we would address those. But at this point, that's not part of the scope of work other than what planning has requested.

And the owners have graciously, I mean it's not like they have a huge choice in it, but they were glad to do that. Does that answer your question? Yeah, sure.

Okay. So to kind of go on, as far as the improvements that you have to make, what is your water environmental and reclamation system presently and what is the plan

for this upgrade? So it would utilize the existing, I'm pretty sure it would utilize the existing water clarification tanks that were in place. It would be the same process that was in place for the self serve. Whether it's automatic or self serve, the water has to go through the same process. So the bay itself is still a bay that was used and so all of that is still tied into the same tanks that have served it for these many years.

And again if through the course of the building permit plan check and that process, there's always the possibility that something could, you know, they might inspect it, they might say, hey you have to improve this or upgrade that, and all of that would come out during the building permit application. But at this point, it is utilizing the existing water clarification tanks that are on-site.

So does that include grease interceptors or traps? Yes.

Okay, very good. Yeah, I mean it, everything has to be collected and processed. That is something that will come out during building permit application. We can't have water leaving the site, and I think there's a drain that runs at the perimeter of the site that prevents water from leaving the site, currently. But if it didn't, and they discovered that water was gonna overflow or whatever, it would have to be addressed.

Okay, so what exactly is keeping the waste water out of the storm drains?

Gravity. It's all flowing to a drain and goes to the clarifiers, and then gets primarily recycled. Whatever would go into, like on a new project, it would go through the sanitary sewer system. I'm presuming that that's, I believe that's where it goes right now. I don't think it gets introduced back into the storm water system.

So the storm drain system will be safe? Right. Okay. That's all the questions I have.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Commissioner Goebbati. Hi, thank you for the report. And I do have a question that you may have just answered, but I wanted to just verify that the automatic car wash bay does not then use a 100% recycled water. It sounds like some of it goes

Right. Right. There will always be some amount of water. So what it does is it reduces the discharge. That's the way a normal car wash system would work is that water gets recycled and some of that recycled water is used, you know it's clarified, it gets recycled, then it gets used. And then eventually there is a percentage of the water that is released and new water is introduced. I don't know those numbers. That's part of the way the car wash works normally.

Thank you. And then I just wanted to comment on the, to the applicants of, I really appreciate your, in your business plan of making the fleet washing services available to our police and fire department. Certainly appreciate that being taken into consideration. Thank you. Great.

So I'm not seeing any other commissioners, I'll ask my questions. I just have a few and it may be to you as well, just a couple of them. The first one was around not having any employees on-site and so just with that how would you deal with just issues that may come up daily, just general things like opening, closing, those types of things. I did hear it mention that mister Kumar, it sounds like, lives maybe adjacent to the site. Is that how you're planning to deal

with He owns the house. He doesn't live in the house, but he owns the house that's next door, that's right behind the car wash. Okay. So I can speak to what the discussions I've had with them, and if they want to come and add more to it. But as Dulce mentioned, they do have two way cameras, or cameras for two way communication.

So mister Kumar has mentioned that there, you know, there have been times when someone maybe, you know, maybe is not taking appropriate action on the property, something that's inappropriate for the property, he could speak to them through the cameras and let them know that if they didn't stop and leave, he would call the police and they would come out. So that's one way that they, currently that's how they address any kind of activity that's not desired for the property. They monitor their cameras, and they can speak to whoever's there and let them know that someone's watching them and it's time to stop. When it comes to the change that takes place for, because the car wash was open twenty four hours, when it comes to the change that takes place, both the planner and I have had extensive discussions with Mr. Kumar and Mr.

Thinde that the car wash itself will have to be disabled during off hours. Mean if someone is in, like if you're at Costco and you're getting gas and they're closing, they'll let you finish filling your tank, you know, and then you can go. So that kind of an accept process will be, we're gonna work to provide for that, but they understand that somehow during our design process, during construction documents, we have to come up with a a kill switch so to speak, that someone cannot accidentally or in an unauthorized manner utilize the car wash at night after hours, which will be a change from what it has been in the past.

So there's an automated way that that would be able to happen or is it something someone would have to come out

and That's what do it have every to explore with the electrical engineer. No, we believe that it could either be set up on a timer, or that they could access remotely and control it remotely. That's going to be our first course of action. Worst case scenario, somebody may have to come and shut it off. I mean that's, we think there are other ways around, but one way or another we understand that it has to, either that or there has to be a gate or something that blocks access. I mean they do understand that.

So along those same lines one of the conditions of approval number 15 is that the property owner shall be responsible for litter free maintenance of the property and shall remove any litter on or within 50 feet of the property property daily to ensure that the property and street frontage remain clear of any abandoned debris or trash. So how will that happen with no employees?

They they will they will monitor the property and keep it clear of litter.

So how will that happen just from looking at a two way camera?

No, they'll have to if there is litter they'll have to come take care of it.

But I mean but if you're just looking at a two way camera how would you even know if there is litter? Oh you know over the I think

they can see the entire site from their cameras. I mean I think they can monitor. You can monitor your entire site right? And I

need me talk a stat. So we have cameras all over and I show up there. So we're not only owners, we're operators as well. I show up to the car wash every day. Also, if we need to have extra assistance, can always +1 099 hire help. So if that's what you're asking, that is another possibility. We also own other businesses where we have employees that we have. And if we need to have help, we have extra help to come in and help clean stuff up. This is one of our many businesses that we have. So we have manpower to do it. If we have to do ten ninety nine for this car wash, we could do that as well. Contract help out. When I'm there, I show up. Throw my gloves on, and I clean up whenever I can and do everything that I can. So we're owners, operators.

I I check the cameras every day. I'll make sure everything's clean. If you go check the site out right now, it's always clean right now as is. And with this extra 50 feet stipulation, we'll make sure that plays into account as well. But if you go to our property now, you'll see it's mostly clean, especially since we took over from 2022, it was. So we we own, we operate, and we get the assistance that we need to keep it clean. And then we check our we have IP camera setup, so we have twenty four hour surveillance. And we have an NVR setup inside, so we're always taking a look. We've even helped out our neighbors with break ins. There's been a few times where the dealership across had an event.

I was able to capture like the license plate. So they're pretty good cameras. We have LPR cameras, PTZ cameras. So we have all that already put into place. Does that answer your question?

That's helpful, thank you. Thank you those are all my questions for you all. My final question was also for staff and it related also to the same question Commissioner Lowe asked because I had a question also about the concern that was raised back in May and just actually who that came from even if you're able to speak to that and if you're not that's okay because I know I didn't send that in ahead of time but I was just curious since we didn't get to see that did that come from one of the neighbors or just concerned citizen or just It a little more was one of

the neighbors who lives on Montgomery so yeah it was one of the neighbors.

So were the concerns that that person had actually addressed before it came to us and that's why we didn't see that or they just didn't say anything else and that's why we didn't see it?

We typically when we get comments from the public we don't always share that unless the public member that's submitting the comments requests to share that with the commission. Oftentimes, we'll get comments that are anonymous and they're intended to be anonymous. Don't want their names disclosed. They just want to be able to comment on the project that they received a notice for. So we don't typically, again, unless somebody's asking to actually please share this with the commission, if they're just reaching out to staff directly, we normally don't include that.

In this particular case, lot of the issues that were being raised, I think, by the homeowner were dealing with trash and noise. And with the sound wall potentially going up and with the commitment and the extra condition to monitor the litter, staff believes that we've accommodated and reflected and responded to those concerns.

Thank you. So I don't see any other commissioners, speakers so I will close this section and we will move on to public comments. I did not see any public comments so I will close public, oh, comments. So we actually will move on to commissioner comments. I do not see any commissioner comments and so I will move on to see if we have a motion for that item and I will move to that section.

So I see that we have a motion to adopt the motion by Commissioner Yorgov. And we have a second by Commissioner Goodbody. Ms. Allen, can you please call roll for a vote? The motion has passed.

Great, thank you. We will now move on to our next item which is the approval of the minutes of the Planning Commission meeting from 10/09/2025. Do we have any speakers or comments for this item? Not seeing any, do we have a motion for this item? I see a motion to adopt from Commissioner Hammond and a second from Commissioner Yorgov.

We will now call roll for votes. Motion passed. Our next item is the approval of the minutes from the October 23 planning commission meeting. Do we have a motion for approval? I see a motion from commissioner Lowe with a second from commissioner Stevens and we will now roll for a vote.

Motion's passed. Our next item is our oral reports on planning and zoning matters. And I will turn it over.

Thank

you. Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing holiday. Welcome to 2026. Just a couple of quick notes.

Our next Planning Commission meeting that we have on January 22 is still scheduled to happen. We will be presenting an update and a work session on the business friendly ordinance, which the Planning Commission may remember earlier last year we came before the commission for recommendation and feedback and we'll be coming back to the commission with a more refined set of recommendations for your feedback. So that will happen. We will also have the election of board elections. And so at that point we'll be asking the Planning Commission to select a chair, a vice chair and a secretary.

So that again will happen at the next meeting on the twenty second. And then just my last comment is just a very general community comment that we have Doctor. Martin Luther King birthday celebration that is scheduled to happen on Monday, January 19 at 04:30. There's a free event that is being hosted by Hayward Unified School District at the Performing Arts Center. There's gonna be some wonderful keynote speakers honoring Doctor.

King. And for those that are unable to attend, you can watch it live or you can watch it prerecorded in the YouTube channel. So you can go either go on the city's website and you can watch it live or if you're unable and you're still interested in watching the event, you can listen to that keynote speech following once it's uploaded onto the YouTube channel. So just wanted to promote that and hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the month. Thank you.

Thank you. Do any commissioners have any announcements or referrals? Not seeing any so meeting is adjourned at 07:38 p. M. Thank you. Chair Hardy there's one more item number four. The meeting is not adjourned, my apologies. There is one more item. The Planning Commission calendar, I believe. Is that what it is?

Just a schedule for the twenty twenty six meetings that are coming up. We typically like to send that out the last meeting in December just to give everyone kind of a heads up. You may notice that there are a couple dates that conflict with a couple of city holidays. And so for the for that reason, the Planning Commission has been canceled for those days. Otherwise we will typically resume a normal schedule of every second and fourth Thursday of the month. But that's just more for reference. There's no action by the commission that's needed on that specific item.

Thank you and thank you all for your patience with me this evening. With that, our next meeting is again scheduled for January 22 and the meeting is adjourned at 07:39 p. M. Thank you.