Clear Lake planning commission approves gas station, convenience store and car wash at Olympic Drive and Old Highway 53

The City of Clear Lake Planning Commission on Jan. 23 approved Conditional Use Permit CUP 2024-02 and the accompanying environmental review (CEQA IS 24-0201) to allow a gas station, convenience store with indoor food service and a drive‑through car wash on three parcels at the corner of Olympic Drive and Old Highway 53 (14975 Olympic Drive and adjacent APNs).

The permit covers a roughly two‑acre site that, according to the staff report, would include a 5,106‑square‑foot convenience store (about 2,000 square feet of it for food service), six double‑sided fuel pumps under a canopy, up to three underground fuel tanks, a roughly 3,600‑square‑foot drive‑through car wash with up to two underground water tanks, about 75 parking spaces, 12 vacuum stations and up to eight electric‑vehicle charging stations. Staff said car‑wash runoff would be collected, filtered and recycled on site and would not route into a special district system.

Why it matters: the project sits near one of the busiest intersections in…