Council Member Diane Hervol raised the issue at City Council’s May 3 meeting after speaking with various food truck operators in the city who felt the current regulations make owning a mobile food business too difficult.
Brandon Alarcon (left), owner of Kyle food truck Donut 911 & Diner, said revisions to the city's food truck ordinance will help spur growth of food options in Kyle.[/caption]Currently the city requires mobile food vendors to renew their permit each month. Creating food truck parks is also made difficult, Hervol said, through a requirement that the vendors be spaced at least 150 feet part. The business’s ability to put up signage is also limited under the current ordinance, and they are not allowed to set up tables, chairs or ice chests for customers.
Hervol said she hopes to change the permitting system to an annual permit renewal and to ease distance requirements between trucks, rules related to signage and rules related to tables, chairs and ice chests for customers.
“I was approached by several of the food truck vendors here in Kyle to make some friendly amendments [to the current ordinance] to … make their areas more customer-friendly,” Hervol said.
The current ordinance was written to govern transient food trucks that stay in certain locations for relatively short periods of time before moving, City Manager Scott Sellers said.
The city has not seen very much of that type of activity, he said.
Council members agreed the addition of a food truck park downtown could bring more foot traffic to the area, which City Manager Scott Sellers said was a key to any downtown’s vitality.
Brandon Alarcon, who owns Donut 911 & Diner at 103 Rebel Drive, Kyle, said he believes the proposed changes could bring more trucks to town. That would provide a wider variety of food options for Kyle residents, he said.
“I think people want different types of food to eat,” Alarcon said. “There are just not a lot of different options in Kyle for different types of food. You have to go into Austin to get that kind of variety.”
Some concern was raised that making it easier for a food truck park to form downtown could hurt local brick-and-mortar establishments in that area. Council directed staff to look at potential options for how to mitigate harm to the city’s brick-and-mortar restaurants.
“There is a balance that could be struck with this where it creates some energy in Old Town,” Mayor Todd Webster said. “It could be structured in a way that benefits brick-and-mortar establishments.”
