Wheat Ridge council leaves Lakeside Auto Wash restrictions in place
The 7-0 vote keeps hours and noise-related conditions on the car wash’s special-use permit after its attorneys invoked Colorado’s property-rights law.
Wheat Ridge City Council voted 7-0 July 13 to leave additional conditions on Lakeside Auto Wash’s special-use permit in place and enforce them after the company’s attorneys invoked Colorado’s regulatory-impairment-of-property-rights law. Mayor Pro Tem Holly was recused and did not vote.
The conditions affect operations at the car wash at 5900 W. 44th Avenue. KDVR reported that they limit hours to 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., instead of 24-hour operation, and require bay doors to remain closed while vehicles are washed. The city has said complaints involved dryers, vacuum stations and bay doors, and that sound testing found violations of the city’s noise ordinance.
Lakeside’s attorneys gave the city notice June 16. During the July 13 meeting, the city attorney said the notice challenged conditions added in the council’s May 18 action and its June 8 written findings. The council could leave the conditions in place, modify them or discontinue them; the council chose to leave them unchanged and enforce them. The meeting record documents the vote and the city attorney’s explanation of the process.
The dispute began after Wheat Ridge approved a 2024 special-use permit to redevelop the longtime car wash property. City records say the permit went to the council for formal review after the facility began operating in early 2025 and the city received continuing concerns about noise, operating hours and other operations. At a May 18 public hearing, the council added conditions; the city’s June 8 agenda record says the council confirmed that action through written findings.
The city attorney said the conditions were intended to address increased operating noise and had to be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose and roughly proportional to the problem addressed. The July 13 city recommendation was to leave the June 8 decision unchanged.
City attorneys requested Holly’s recusal because she also had been recused from the May 18 hearing and June 8 consideration of the written findings. The other seven council members agreed, and Holly left the chamber. The public records reviewed for this story do not state why she was recused or identify the basis as financial, personal, professional or another type of conflict.
The vote resolves the city’s immediate response to Lakeside’s notice but does not resolve a possible court challenge. The city attorney said the owner could bring a district-court action within the statutory deadline after the local-government response period; no later court filing was identified in the records reviewed for this story.