The Huntsville, Texas city council recently met to vote on building a new car wash on Pear Drive, which has been met with mixed reactions from the community. 

Clean Car Wash stands to gain the most as they estimate a net profit of $1.2 million and $1.7 million in their first two years of business, with the downside of bringing more commercialization to Huntsville. The other downside for the community with this is potentially driving away new residents to the area with rising property costs.

The property that Clean Car Wash wants to build on is in a residential neighborhood. The problem is that car wash can be loud and draw in high levels of traffic. With the company expecting nearly 300 cars a day to run through the car wash, this could deter many people from wanting to live in the surrounding areas.

Since increased traffic and noise are two surefire ways to reduce property value, it is no wonder so many people in Huntsville are against this car wash.

“I think it’s a bad idea for Huntsville,” Huntsville resident Scott Hornung said. “I believe it was instigated by some selfish greedy individuals. I think they were abetted by a shortsighted city council and they all wrapped it up into this kind of mindless cloak of libertarian ideology.”

While Huntsville City Council may represent the citizens on paper, a case like this shows who they really represent. The people they represent are whoever lines their pockets the most. The Clean Car Wash estimates they will earn the city $35,000 in property taxes.

That is the price to pay for city officials to ignore the concerns of citizens. If the buildings currently on the property earned that much more for the city, maybe this would be a different story.