The owner of a Brookfield car wash faces the prospect of having expansion plans delayed by months or scuttled after village trustees indicated they might not support his request for a zoning variation.

William Klump, owner of the Brookfield Express Car Wash at 9545 Ogden Ave., said he plans on a $1.1 million improvement to the current facility, which he purchased in 1995. In addition to a general makeover of the current facility, reconfiguring the traffic pattern and increased landscaping, the centerpiece is the construction of an 80-foot addition along the south lot line.

The addition would create a modern, enclosed, automatic car wash facility with new equipment that would allow cars to be properly washed during the winter and improve quality during the car wash’s busiest days.

An ATM-like entrance lane would allow customers to pay with a credit card before the car wash and the streamlined process would eliminate double-tipping that customers often provide for workers at the start of the line and at the end.

At a June 5 meeting, however, the village’s zoning board of appeals voted to deny recommending a zoning variance by a vote of 5-1, saying that Klump had not proven hardship under the code.

The south wall of the existing automatic car wash bay is just 1.85 feet from the lot line. The zoning code calls for a five-foot setback. Despite the fact that Klump would be extending the non-conformity and not creating a new one, the zoning board recommended denial.

The vote meant that a supermajority of village trustees (four of the six) needs to vote for the variance to overturn that recommendation. That vote will take place at the board’s July 14 meeting.

On Monday, two trustees voiced their opposition to granting the zoning variance, saying that there was another alternative available to Klump which would allow the village tighter control of final design elements.

Trustees Kit Ketchmark and C.P. Hall said the village’s planned unit development (PUD) process would be more appropriate, since it would not entail asking for a simple zoning variance and would allow the village to sign off on specific design details, including traffic patterns, landscaping and building materials.

Ketchmark pointed to the townhome development at 31st Street and Prairie Avenue, which was approved through zoning variances, as the reason for it.

Once approved, the Prairie Square Townhomes ended up looking much different than the plans pitched to the village.

“Approving this variation could lead to other problems we have no control over,” Ketchmark said.

Klump, a Darien resident, said that while village staff offered the PUD process as an alternative to the variation process, he incorporated all of staff’s suggestions into the plans and gave his word to trustees Monday that what was presented would be built.

He also told the board that when he went through a PUD process to build a car wash in Romeoville, it took over two years and cost an additional $200,000.

In response to the illustration of the Prairie Square Townhomes as an example of the need for PUD, Klump said that he has owned the business for 13 years and wasn’t looking to make a quick buck and then leave town.

“I don’t understand the need for a planned development,” Klump said.

Klump also tied the variation process to the resurfacing of Ogden Avenue, which will begin later this summer. Tearing up the street will effectively close the car wash for 90 days, Klump said, because the construction dirt will drive people away from it.

Klump indicated he could use that 90 days for construction.

“My understanding is that Aug. 1 is when Ogden Avenue will begin resurfacing, and I’ll be shut for 90 days,” Klump said. “If I go through a PUD, it’ll be another 90 days.”

Village President Michael Garvey indicated he agreed with Ketchmark and Hall’s assessment.

“I think it’s a great project … but there is a way to make this happen under our ordinances,” Garvey said.

“[Approving the variance without proving hardship] is the old-style way of doing things,” he added. “That’s the trap boards have fallen into all these years. We have to either follow our ordinances or get rid of them.”