The Boerne Planning and Zoning Commission has agreed to head up a subcommittee geared toward better understanding how the city might change its policy surrounding food truck parks.
Under existing city ordinances, food trucks must be moved from a property in town for a five-hour window between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. each night. However, an ordinance amendment presented by city staff to the planners Monday may change this.
Laura Haning, Boerne’s planning and community development director, presented a draft ordinance that defines food truck parks and set forth regulations for more permanent food truck courts in the city, noting the food truck park that was beginning to develop across from Main Plaza, which Haning said was the main catalyst for the ordinance change.
However, several of the planners raised concerns about sedentary food trucks and some fire safety practices.
“That would be my concern for a food court is just the longterm visual part of a food court and just how it starts to look like nothing is moving, and that draws a concern to me,” Planner Lucas Hiler said.
He mentioned the food court developing near the “town square” and expressed concern about the umbrellas and neon signs that began popping up.
The commission attempted to resolve the issue on the spot, discussing a 90-day limit for food trucks where the vehicles would need to be moved for an undetermined length of time every 90 days. Planner Bill Bird mentioned the potential solution to address Hiler’s concerns, adding that the city may be giving up its leverage by allowing food trucks to stay on a site indefinitely.
This solution presented its own issues among the planners as Hiler expressed concern that such a limitation might address his initial concerns while also barring new startups from establishing any routes in town.
“I’m a little conflicted because I recognize that a lot of food trucks end up acting as an incubator for new restaurants in a community,” Hiler said. “So, I don’t – just me personally – want to say you have to leave here after 90 days because it could be a really good one (food truck). It could be a really good food truck, and then they have to move some place into San Antonio? They never really can establish themselves in the community. Then the aesthetic part of it, it might be a 25-year-old food truck that may not be as appealing as some of the others, and then you would want the 90 days.”
Although the ordinance proposed by city staff still would require all food trucks to be mobile and capable of being moved off a given lot at any time within a “reasonable” amount of time, Planner Bill Bird questioned how the grease traps would be handled if the food trucks aren’t being moved out nightly. He noted there might need to be an amendment stating how frequently the trucks will need to move so the grease traps can be cleaned, adding that would be one the biggest fire risks for a food truck park.
Additionally, Bird noted the ordinance should include a height limitation for food trucks in relation to the height of any neighboring structures. Once it was confirmed food trucks would require a health permit and inspection from the county and city, Bird questioned whether the trucks would be able to get a permit offsite and move into a park or if they would need to be inspected onsite since they would become a permanent-mobile hybrid restaurant under the new ordinance.
While some of the planners seemed in full support of establishing some means of a more prolonged use of food trucks in the city, noting how well the food truck park on Johns Road operates, the planners seemed in agreement that the ordinance needed to be considered very carefully.
“I’ve seen some of these food truck lots in bigger cities, and they can be pretty awesome if they’re done right,” Planner Bob Cates said. “So, this is really more of a permanent food truck park, not just people coming in for weekends and setting up kind of tacky temporary (places). I think if it’s regulated right and inspected right, I think it would be a real asset to Boerne.”
Currently, there are no food truck parks within the city limits aside from the Johns Road example, which city staff chocked up to the overnight moving requirement. Haning said the Johns Road food truck park was grandfathered in because it existed before it was annexed into the city, but she said it will come into compliance with projected improvements to the property.
Should an ordinance allowing overnight parking of food trucks come to fruition, most cases would require a special-use permit, including any lots that are zoned neighborhood, transitional, community or regional commercial. The proposed ordinance only automatically permitted food truck parks in craft commercial zones, of which the city currently has none.
In the end, too many unanswered questions remained, so Cates was appointed to chair a subcommittee alongside Hiler and Bird to discuss the issue and gather input from business owners in Boerne with food truck experience. The subcommittee is expected to present to the planning and zoning commission in three weeks.
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