Splash Car Wash: Final Approval, Lawsuit

Parties involved in a lawsuit that alleges the planning board of the Town of Bedford "failed to take a hard look" at the proposal for a Splash car wash at 570 North Bedford Road may appear in court this week.

The suit, filed by Dino DeFeo, a resident of Valerio Court—which will see an increase in traffic because access to the car wash would be from that street—names the following as defendants: Bedford's zoning board of appeals (ZBA), the planning board, Splash Management Group, LLC, Onab. Corp. and 570 North Bedford Road, LLC. It was filed with the Supreme Court of the State of New York in and for the County of Westchester.

Supervisor Lee V. A. Roberts said her policy is not to comment on pending litigation against the town. Patch was unable to reach representatives for the other parties named.

The suit, which was filed late last month, requests that the negative declaration—a document issued by the planning board when members have determined there would be no significant impact on the environment—be vacated and annulled. It asks the same of the special permit and variances provided by the ZBA, and says that the traffic data officials studied was inaccurate.

Because the planning board did not take a "hard look" at the inconsistencies between the project and the town's master plan, the negative declaration is "illegal and arbitrary and capricious," the suit claims. The use variance issued by the ZBA is illegal, too, the document states, because the applicant failed to establish unnecessary hardship by failing to demonstrate both that they could not receive a reasonable return on investment under current zoning and that their hardship was not self-created.

Splash Car Wash is located at 527 Bedford Road. Russell Speeders car wash plans to open there in the spring. Splash is slated to move across and down the street, to the former Carvel site, which falls partially in a residential zone and partially in the roadside business zone.

The planning board recently gave preliminary site plan approval for Splash's plans, after more than a year of discussions. The proposal—specifically, final site plan approval—is the fourth item on the agenda for this evening's planning board meeting, which starts at 8 p.m. 

Feb. 28 is the return date for the lawsuit. DeFeo's lawyer, David Squirrell of Mount Kisco, said an adjournment for a later date is possible. None of the defendants have filed responses.