Proposed OC Auto Repair Shop Not Approved For Now

OCEAN CITY — A proposed auto repair shop in mid-town Ocean City got sent back to the drawing board this week after the Ocean City Planning Commission decided the plan as presented did not provide enough detailed information.

The commission on Tuesday was prepared to hold a public hearing on a proposed conditional use request for a property on the south side of 74th Street at Coastal Highway. The parcel is zoned LC-1 commercial, but also includes an existing residential structure.

The applicant, Paul Freed, intends to move the existing residential structure, which includes a few apartments, to the rear of the property and develop the front section of the parcel with a two-bay auto repair shop. The initial plan called for a three-bay repair shop, but was scaled back after the logistics of the property couldn’t make that work. Those same logistics later derailed the conditional use request, and the public hearing, after the planning commission was not convinced even a two-bay auto repair shop could work on the site.

Planning and Community Development Director Bill Neville laid out the details of the proposal for the planning commission and said after staff review an auto repair shop was appropriate in the LC-1 zoning designation. Neville said the staff reviewed the concept plan for a variety of reasons including limitations on the signage and outside lighting, roof type, smoke, noise and odor, curb cuts and setbacks.

“At the moment, it is proposed as a rather small scale operation, but there were some concerns about expansion in the future,” he said. “Fuel sales would not be appropriate in the future on this site. We were also a little concerned about the plan to move the residential. The residence could be repurposed as workforce housing so there isn’t a built-in conflict. That would be the staff’s recommendation.”

Freed, who has been in the auto repair business for 20 years, systematically addressed each of the concerns he had heard from neighboring property owners from noise, odors and traffic to environmental impacts and real estate values in the area.

When asked why he focused on Ocean City in general and 74th Street in particular, Freed said there was clearly a need for another auto repair shop on the island.

“I asked a lot of people where they go to get their vehicles worked on and 95 percent said somewhere on the other side of the bridge,” he said. “There is only one other shop at the foot of the Route 50 bridge. This is centralized in the middle of town and 74th Street can handle it.”

However, before the public hearing could continue, a public hearing for which dozens had gathered presumably to testify against the proposal including some prominent neighboring business owners and property owners, the Planning Commission began carefully scrutinizing the proposed layout of the project and started finding holes in it.

The proposal includes moving the residential element to the back of the property and developing a two-bay auto repair shop on the front. However, with the requisite parking and setbacks needed for the building, and an existing east-west alley through the property, Planning Commissioner Palmer Gillis agreed with the concept, but said the plan didn’t work as presented.

“I think this is needed in town and I appreciate your entrepreneurial spirit, but I have a problem with the geometry,” he said. “With the alley and the parking spots and the required setbacks, there isn’t much room for your building.”

Planning Commissioner Peck Miller said the concept plan as presented did not provide enough information on how Freed planned to situate the building with the alley, parking spots and setbacks.

“Our objective is to look after the health and welfare of Ocean City and I’m not sure we can do that tonight with what we have in front of us,” he said.

Planning Commission attorney Will Esham was asked whether it was appropriate to move forward with the public hearing on the conditional use request with so many unanswered questions about the logistics. Esham said the plan should probably be tightened up before the commission moved forward with the hearing.

“The conceptual plan at least should work,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to approve a conditional use and find out later it can’t work on this site.”

Gillis even questioned if the developer had considered all of the costs associated with moving the residential structure and building the auto repair shop on the site.

“Once you look at the economics of this, you have to ask yourself if it is worth it,” he said. “You’re going to have to put sprinklers in the residential component and fire separation, alarm systems. It’s really going to be an expensive undertaking.”

Miller, acting chair on Tuesday, closed the public hearing and sent the developer back the drawing board.

“I’m not sure we can even vote on this,” he said. “I think we need more detail and we don’t have enough information to make a decision.”

About The Author: Shawn Soper

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Shawn Soper has been with The Dispatch since 2000. He began as a staff writer covering various local government beats and general stories. His current positions include managing editor and sports editor. Growing up in Baltimore before moving to Ocean City full time three decades ago, Soper graduated from Loch Raven High School in 1981 and from Towson University in 1985 with degrees in mass communications with a journalism concentration and history.