Mission City Council approves ordinance limiting new car wash businesses 

No one from the community spoke to support or oppose Mission’s new ordinance that will prohibit new car washes from opening within a one-mile radius of an existing car wash during a public hearing in on Tuesday.

The Mission city council voted unanimously to adopt ordinance 5761, which will apply to both commercial and mom and pop handwash businesses. The council did not publicly deliberate the agenda item.

The council approved the new rule after the city’s planning and zoning commission unanimously approved the then-proposed measure at a separate meeting last week.

Xavier Cervantes, Mission’s director of planning, previously told the city council and the zoning commission that required notices were published in the newspaper and no comments had been received from the public.

“This is about preserving water resources, so based on that, the council has expressed an interest in limiting new car wash facilities not closer than one mile from an existing car wash,” Cervantes said at last week’s zoning commission meeting.  

Based on a heat map generated by the planning department, new car washes could possibly be located on south Conway, south Bryan and or south Shary Road, but the establishment of a new car wash in central Mission appears to be impossible, as the ordinance will also be enforced on property zoned as C3, or for commercial use.

“This is due to drought conditions,” Cervantes said. “Most of central Mission, it would not be possible to establish a new car wash.”

Brownsville has the toughest city ordinance, prohibiting new car washes within five miles of an existing car wash. McAllen requires new car washes to be at least half a mile apart; Harlingen’s distance requirement is two miles.