Toledo council approves moratoriums on new car washes, storage units

Council approved a moratorium until Jan. 31 on accepting plans for new storage unit and car wash facilities.

Councilman Adam Martinez said before the meeting that a moratorium was sought so that the Toledo Plan Commission can do a study on their impact on the neighborhoods.

“The concern is that there is a proliferation of car washes and storage facilities,” Mr. Martinez said. “They seem to be popping up all over the place. They’re probably not the highest and best use of land. We want to make sure we’re creating density.”

The moratorium means that anyone who is interested in putting in a new car wash or storage facility will not be able to until the study is completed.

“We have to find out if there’s a surplus of them or not enough of them,” Mr. Martinez said.

The study will map out all the car washes and storage facilities in the city, he said.

“Maybe the study will show there is not an issue, or it needs to be studied further,” he said. “Or maybe they find out that some are built on Brownfield sites that restrict the type of buildings that can be located there. So they will dig into the weeds on this.”

“In my opinion, they are not the best use of our land,” Council President Carrie Hartman said. “Car washes and self-storage units don’t have employees, and so there’s no economic driver to those things, so they take up space.”

Also at the meeting, council approved a $50,000 settlement with one of two women who sued the city and two police officers claiming brutality and false arrest during a traffic stop on New Year’s Day, 2023.

Kaylynn Smart was a passenger in a car that was pulled over by police after it passed close to a vehicle involved in response to an accident. Ms. Smart, in a lawsuit filed in December in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, claimed false arrest, unlawful imprisonment, unreasonable and excessive force, assault and battery, and related mistreatment by two officers who pulled over the vehicle.

The officers were disciplined for their conduct during the encounter, which was recorded on their cruiser’s dashboard camera.

Council also approved a professional services contract for the design of a new Savage Park splash pad in an amount not to exceed $150,000 from the capital improvement fund.

Council also approved a grant agreement with the Toledo Celtics Inc. for the purpose of contributing $70,000 from the capital improvement fund for the acquisition of mini-pitch soccer fields at Schneider Park.