Ward 5 City Councilor Lavar Click-Bruce discusses a potential food truck ordinance during the March 9 City Council Meeting.
Photo credit: Focus Springfield
SPRINGFIELD — Food truck businesses in Springfield could soon be getting more regulations after the City Council approved the first step of a food truck ordinance at its March 9 meeting.
DPW Director Christopher Cignoli initially brought the ordinance before the council during a November meeting with initial stipulations around a permitting fee, a required 500-foot buffer from a permanent food establishment and hours of operation.
At the March 9 meeting, Cignoli recommended that the price of the permit be $350 for a six-month period with a $150 renewal fee, the buffer from residential property would be 500 feet and that the hours of operation should be expanded.
Ward 5 Councilor Lavar Click-Bruce, who chairs the Maintenance and Development Committee, explained that passing the ordinance was important and there needed to be clear guidelines in place for operating food trucks.
“We must ensure we are protecting the quality of life in our neighborhoods, this includes considerations such as hours of operation … I would also like us to look at restroom access, generator noise, buffer zones, parking and the process for obtaining special permits for mobile food truck operators,” he said.
Click-Bruce added that he would like the council to have a say in the approval of the special permits.
One sticking point for many of the councilors was the fee associated with the special permit. Ward 1 Councilor Maria Perez said that one issue food truck owners presented to the committee about the fee was the difference between operating a food truck and a restaurant.
“The presentation that they presented was very valid, because they are seasonal businesses and the type of food that they serve — this came from the committee — is not as great as the restaurants,” she said.
At Large Councilor Jose Delgado said in addition to creating guidelines for food trucks, the council should work to make it beneficial to the city in addition to being a revenue generator for the truck owners.
“Food trucks are not new; they’ve been around for a while. You go to Los Angeles, you go to any major city, they’ve got food truck parks, you go to Puerto Rico, they find different ways to really make a thing out of it and I think we really need to think together with the city about what we can do with that,” he said.
Ward 4 Councilor Victor Davila said that one of his concerns was parking and wanted to make sure that parking plans needed to be submitted for a special permit. Cignoli explained that in addition to the plans, there were conditions that need to be met.
“It was kind of two-fold, number 1 does the food truck business have enough parking for it, we want to make sure it does. And also, at the same time, if there is a primary business operating there that that is not negatively impacted as well,” Cignoli said.
Davila added that one of his biggest concerns was the 500-foot buffer zone and said he wanted that to be resolved in committee before it passed the first step.
“We might be shooting ourselves in the foot if we start restricting 500 feet. It’s going to take a lot of spaces away that are going to be available. I’m afraid that we are going to be in return shrinking the possibility of spaces for these places to operate,” he said.
While he was in favor of sending the ordinance back to committee, Click-Bruce said he wanted input from the rest of the council after he circulated an email to the council for feedback that he said received no responses.
“I’m begging everyone to give input; it doesn’t make sense for us to keep having meetings to keep having meetings. Give input so Chris can actually put in what we want so that way he can present to us where we’re coming at from a body and we can move forward with this,” he said.
Cignoli said that the intent was to have the ordinance ready by May 1 to make sure food truck owners are aware there is a new process. He noted that getting the information to the food truck owners could take until the end of the year.
“The intent was to have it in place for the spring so that food vendors, even though we had a great turnout from the food vendors, we do know that a lot of them probably will not know that there is a new regulation that will be in place. We rather would spend the time in the winter and spring getting that information to them,” he said.
At Large Councilor Justin Hurst said the ordinance could always be revised in the future.
“An ordinance of this nature that is as complex as this one is, it’s probably impossible to get it perfect, but what I will say is that we can always come back to the table after we see it rolled out and make any necessary amendments,” he said.
Ward 8 Councilor Zaida Govan said she was concerned about an additional fee for the business owners.
“I’ve had a few food truck owners talk about how expensive it is to gettheir trucks on the road because they have to pay Fire, Police, the Health Department, a few fees associated with that and then to add another fee on top of it might be a bit of a burden,” she said.
While a motion to send the ordinance back to committee was denied, the council voted to approve the first step of the ordinance. That approval advances it to the Maintenance and Development Committee for further review before it returns to the full council for a second and final vote.
