By Mark Baratelli
TheDailyCity.com Food Truck Bazaar
I'd like food trucks to operate in the City of Orlando seven days a week. They can. I found out how. I'd like to share the barebones, basic outline of how to go about getting approval for that with food truck owners, businesses who wish to host food trucks on their property, and food truck fans.
I got this information from the City of Orlando's Jason Burton. You may call him at 407.246.3389 or email him at jason.burton@cityoforlando.net. In my meetings with him, I have found him to be available and helpful. If none of this makes sense to you, reach out to him for help.
Some basics:
- Since you can vend seven days a week, a food truck can vend one, three or five days a week if the permit is approved. This can take one day or three months to be approved, depending on the site on which a food truck wishes to park.
- The fee to get a permit is $50 for one site or one hundred sites. If you go in and apply for them all at once, it's the same as applying for one. Fifty bucks. Done. Less than seven trucks have applied for permits so far.
- A food truck can vend on school property (elementary, middle, high school, college) with a permit.
- A food truck can vend with a permit at a church on residential property (after inspection) twice a year. Obviously, it would need to be a food truck event with multiple trucks to make it worth the effort. If it's not on residential property, check with Jason before moving forward.
Below is a basic list of steps for how to vend from a food truck seven days a week in the city of Orlando. Every detail is not here. It is not all-encompassing. That is not the goal of this post. For that, you need to go read the city documents yourself, call Jason with questions, and do some footwork on your own. The goal here is to introduce you all to the fact that vending can occur seven days a week in the city of Orlando and outline the basic steps on how to do it. That's it.
1. Location: Find a business that wants to host trucks on its private property. Make sure the business owns the land. If they don't, contact the business that does own the land and move ahead. The business, currently, must be inside one of the Main Street Districts, a school (elementary through college), a church, a mall (list is available from City of Orlando). This has the potential to change 4 months from now if the city sees that trucks and businesses want to work together in zones outside of those listed above. But if the city doesn't know you want it, it's possible that nothing will change. So go in and put the request in. Jason will take these requests to the council to argue for changing the regulations.
2. Zoning: Email Jason at the city of Orlando (see above for contact info) with the name and address of the business and ask him if it is zoned for this type of use. If it is, get a letter from the business partner signed and notarized, and take it in to Jason, along with a *very* basic site plan. You can print from Google Maps and sketch out where the trucks will go. It does *not* need to be complicated. It's also possible that the site is located outside of the City of Orlando. You can look here before you call him if you wish. Jason will confirm if it is or not.
3. Permit: The property will be examined and it will be determined if the property is up to code or not. Landscaping, parking, lighting and pavement condition, among other things, will be looked at. If it is up to code, you're good to go and you can begin vending once you have your permit. If it is not up to code, you apply for a MOD. It's a mini variance request. If that is approved, you receive your permit and you are good to go.
4. Conditional Use Permit: If the business is in an area that is not zoned for intensive use (AC-1, AC-2, AC-3A), you apply for a Conditional Use Permit. This is expensive: $1,500. This can take up to three months to be approved. It goes to a hearing and is debated. You can get three determinations from the city: (1) yes, (2) no, (3) yes with conditions.
Read the City of Orlando's Food Truck Pilot Program to familiarize yourself with the rules.
