An auto repair chain’s expansion is in limbo after zoning commissioners on Wednesday refused to endorse the opening of a new shop less than 30 feet from north Fort Worth residents’ backyards.
In 2025, city officials mistakenly greenlit Fifth Gear Automotive, which operates eight locations across North Texas, to open a shop off Loddick Lane, a residential street between two north Fort Worth suburbs. Residents pushed back on the shop’s opening, leading city officials to admit that they had mistakenly given the auto shop permission.
The shop’s fate is in the hands of City Council, which is scheduled to give its final say on March 31. The zoning commission’s unanimous vote against Fifth Gear is ultimately only a recommendation to council members to deny the rezoning request.
“Looking at the land use, and how we typically look at a case like this, we would never put an automotive use in a neighborhood,” said Jeremy Raines, chair of the commission.
Wes Hoblit, a consultant speaking on behalf of Fifth Gear told commissioners before the vote that the company has a history of being “good neighbors” in residential areas across the region.
Hoblit, a former Fort Worth zoning commissioner who stepped down in 2025, explained that Fifth Gear would conduct repairs indoors, plant trees and build fences to block residents’ views of the shop. Company officials would try to mitigate potential traffic on the residential street, he added.
More than 20 residents from the area showed up to Wednesday’s meeting to express opposition to the auto shop, voicing concerns that it would hurt home values and quality of life. Speakers decried the heavy traffic, noise and pollution that could come with a shop potentially servicing nearly 100 cars a week.
Eric Wilhite, a resident who led the opposition, told commissioners that he doesn’t have anything against Fifth Gear as a company, but he can’t “see anything that offsets or mitigates any of the negative impacts that this type of land use can have.”
Wilhite, who lives about 200 feet from the property, quoted a section of Fort Worth code that bars automotive repair operations in residential neighborhoods. Fifth Gear is requesting the city to waive that rule.
In July, Fort Worth zoning officials initially greenlit Fifth Gear’s new shop, incorrectly telling company officials that the property’s current zoning allows auto repair.
That zoning classification, PD-894, allowed for uses including warehouse, outdoor storage, retail sales and office space — but not automotive uses. Before the shop moved into the property, the land was used and zoned as a warehouse space for over a decade.
City planning manager Stephanie Scott-Sims told the Report that the permission was “an oversight” that stemmed from “an issue” with the city’s geographic information systems that led to staff providing the wrong information.
City legal officials at the meeting declined to comment on whether Fort Worth’s potential rescinding of permission to open an auto shop opens the city up to litigation from Fifth Gear.
Fifth Gear began moving in, renovating and advertising the future shop last fall. That prompted Wilhite, a city planner of 30 years and official for the city of Gunter, to question city staff how it was allowed to do so without rezoning.
In November emails to Wilhite reviewed by the Report, city officials defended their decision to allow Fifth Gear, arguing the automotive operations would only cover 34% of the property and was, therefore, an accessory to the warehouse that would not require rezoning.
City staff eventually notified the company that the shop required rezoning.
“Mistakes happen, so we’re not here to berate anybody about a mistake,” said Raines, the zoning commission chair. “But that’s part of our job: is to make a recommendation about whether or not that zoning decision is the right one or not.”
Bill Bernick, founder and co-owner of Fifth Gear Automotive, did not immediately respond to the Report’s request for comment after the March 11 vote. Bernick previously told the Report that Fifth Gear wants to work with nearby homeowners to address their concerns and be a member of the community.
“We believe that our planned physical investments in the facility and property should be considered a significant improvement for the neighborhood to alleviate some of the concerns they might have had in the past over its use,” he wrote in a January email.
Bill Bernick listens to a north Fort Worth resident decry his company’s move to open a shop among single-family neighborhoods during a City Council public comment meeting on Jan. 6, 2026. (Drew Shaw | Fort Worth Report)
City staff had recommended the commission support the rezoning for Fifth Gear. Scott-Sims argued that the property could appropriately hold a commercial repair shop.
She noted to commissioners that Fifth Gear’s owner does not plan to expand or change the existing warehouse itself.
“We evaluated the proposed operations of the auto repair and felt that it was going to be compatible with the area, because we didn’t think it was going to be intrusive,” Scott-Sims said. “They’re doing everything inside of the building.”
Hoblit, the consultant, said the shop expects to start out servicing 20 vehicles per week. The company plans to add a fenced-in parking pad to hold vehicles and would operate from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, he noted.
“Everything’s indoors,” he said. “No outside storage of anything at all — one bay door, it’s AC climate-controlled.”
Scott-Sims said that while homes lie directly north and south of the potential auto shop, the property is immediately flanked by a day care to its east and a fenced-in landscaping business to its west.
Zoning commissioners pushed back on Scott-Sims’ suggestion that the property’s immediate commercial neighbors justified a rezoning. Raines argued that — beyond the day care and landscaping company — the property is “completely surrounded” by residential.
Zoning commissioner Jacob Wurman noted that, if the rezoning request is approved, nothing would stop another, less responsible repair shop from moving in after Fifth Gear.
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.orgor @shawlings601.
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