Scott Swanson
Anticipating the arrival of food cart “pods” in Sweet Home, Planning Commission members on Thursday, June 2, addressed the question of whether they should be regulated and how.
“We’ve had a lot of interest lately in creating food courts with food pods and you know, all of the different food trucks,” Associate Planner Angela Clegg said in introducing the topic.
She said the city lacks “criteria” for food pods, while she anticipates two coming to the city for approval.
Clegg said she’d researched what other communities are doing, particularly Albany, which has The Barn at Hickory Station, and Lebanon, which recently had The Landing open on Primrose Street, with 10 food trucks and a central brewhouse operated by Tallman Brewing.
“This is a new fad,” she said. “This is not going to go away soon.”
Commissioners agreed that the city needs to be prepared for the arrival of such an establishment in Sweet Home.
“This shouldn’t be a surprise to us that this is here now,” Commissioner Eva Jurney said. “I wish we could have anticipated this a year or two ago and have it already taken care of.”
Chairman Jeff Parker agreed, saying that the city needs to be able to establish conditions such as “making sure there is some handicap parking situated in certain arrangements.”
Blair Larsen, city planning and economic development director, said that could be done through code revisions.
Clegg said city staff is currently using “restaurant criteria” to review the two applications it has received for issues such as parking, but “it’s been kind of, you know, an iffy thing.”
Commissioners were given a copy of Lebanon’s criteria, she said, and both Clegg and Larsen said they would investigate further to see what other cities are doing and provide that information to commissioners.
Commissioners discussed the differences between mobile food prep units and actual pods, which often include a central building that serves liquor, surrounded by food carts, and what kinds of requirements might be necessary – paving or gravel, the number of carts allowed, restrooms, water and sewer, and what type of vehicle might be considered a cart and how long a cart could remain on the site without moving.
“I really feel like the Lebanon code that Angela provided for us, it really hits on all the things that we’ve been talking about that we’re concerned about,” Commissioner Laura Wood said, citing some of those as examples. “I think it really does set a good structure for us to be able to say, ‘This will work for Sweet Home; let’s figure out what our specifics are here.’ It has a lot of those things. So I really appreciate you actually finding this and providing it for us. Because, yeah, things like gravel and paved, like there’s areas where we can add that into their code.”
Parker said he agreed, but that he considered the food carts to be non-permanent structures, which should be subject to conditional use permits.
Larsen said that a pod development would be considered permanent, though the trucks themselves would not.
“The idea is those would move in and out that there would be an improved number of spaces that the the owner would not be able to go beyond.”
“They’d be basically an RV park,” Parker responded.
“Kind of, yeah,” Larsen said. “And just like we want to make sure we have good rules for RV parks. Because once they’re built you don’t have that much control over them.”
Commissioners made it clear that they liked the idea of food carts coming to Sweet Home.
“I think it’s great,” Commissioner David Lowman said, noting that he’s visited “several” pods in Salem and Albany. “We don’t have a lot of eating places here now. So we would get one in, you know, hopefully, you know, it’d be maybe 10 carts. So that gives us 10 more restaurants or so to go to, and it brings people out.”
“And it seems like every place I’ve visited them, they’re having a good time. You know, because at The Barn they have a major building which serves that beer and stuff and music going, and people just like to get out and mingle with people.”
He added that he would expect increased traffic to Sweet Home if such an establishment were present in town.
Clegg said she would go through Lebanon’s and, possibly, Albany’s code and try to have a recommendation ready for the commissioners at their June 16 meeting.
“We’ve got a lot of applications right now. So I will do what I can to try to put something together by the next meeting but I am not going to make promises.”
In other action, the commissioners finished a review of changes to Article III and Article IV of the city’s code, which has been reviewed by Walt Wendolowski, retired Lebanon planning director, over the past year.
Article III deals with development requirements and Article IV with review procedures.
Larsen noted that one proposed change would be to limit the size of accessory dwellings permitted by the city based on the size of the lot and the primary structure rather than the current limit of 864 square feet. Also, Larsen pointed out, the height of any new structure could not exceed that of the primary structure.
“We’re just pitching 864 and going to percentage?” Parker asked.
“I like this new verbiage,” Wood said.
Larsen quoted Wendolowski: “The key is to make sure that you’re not going to have a huge accessory structure right next to a huge house on a small lot, that you would have them proportional in some way that the residential structure, the accessory structure has to fit within the current lot coverage or something like that, and as a percentage of the size of the principal structure.”
Parker said he “loved” the idea, noting that he owns a lot that is half an acre in size and “having an auxiliary structure that is limited to 864 square feet, you know, it seems kind of arbitrary.
With the completion of modifications to the code, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing as soon as possible after it notifies the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission of the changes, which is required by law.
After that public hearing, the commission will consider approving the document and recommending the changes to the City Council, which will then hold its own hearing, Larsen said. Then the council will hold a meeting in which the entire document will be read by computer, with the council members present – a process that will likely take five or six hours, he said, and then approve the ordinance.
To see the drafts of Sections III and IV, visit http://www.sweethomeor.gov/meetings and click on the Agenda Packet for June 2.
For questions or more information, contact Larsen at (541) 818-8036 or [email protected] or Clegg at (541) 367-8113 or [email protected].