CRANBERRY TWP — Months after its request for a zoning variance was denied, construction of a car wash will begin in Seven Fields.

ModWash, an automated car wash with 12 dozen open or under-construction locations in the United States, including one operating in nearby Coraopolis, received approval from Seven Fields Borough Council to construct a car wash at Pointe Place, and last Wednesday purchased the one-acre lot at Route 228 and Northpointe Circle that was the site of contention at zoning board hearings in February and March.

The company, which plans to construct a car wash with a number of vacuums at the junction of the state route and Northpointe, was denied its request for a variance to build the structure closer to the property line than is allowed by ordinance in Seven Fields, and as such had to modify its plans, resulting in a lower number of vacuums and the construction of a sound barrier.

Noise resolutions

Although the issue before the borough's hearing board was whether real estate firm Hutton — which is developing the property — could construct a structure closer to the property line than it's allowed under the zoning ordinance, Seven Fields residents seized on another issue: Noise.

The two were intertwined, however, as the structure Hutton planned to build 19 feet from the property line — a 16-foot decrease from the 35-foot setback requirement — was a vacuum distributor.

During six hours of testimony across two days of zoning hearing board meetings, residents again and again sought the borough's relief from noise produced by the proposed ModWash vacuums. The Northpointe-Route 228 property is sandwiched between commercial properties to the west and south and residences to the east and across Route 228, with roughly 110 feet from the eastern edge of the property line to the nearest residence.

Hutton's new plans include a reduction in the number of vacuum sites, from 25 to fewer than 10; the halving of its vacuum distributors from two to one; and the construction of an at least 8-foot-tall sound barrier around the distributor.

With those modifications, an acoustical engineering firm reported, the eastern residential area would experience 62 decibels and the northern residential area 59 decibels of noise from the vacuum producer, the vacuum hoses and the actual car wash's dryer blowers.

According to Purdue University, 60 decibels is roughly equivalent to a conversation in a restaurant or office, and 70 decibels is roughly equivalent to radio or television audio.