Food cart proposal riles downtown Delaware business owners

MELISSA MACKEY

Staff Writer

Down­town devel­oper Joe Dia­mond is appalled at the thought of allow­ing mobile food ven­dors in the city’s core busi­ness dis­trict, he told Delaware City Coun­cil Mon­day night.

Dia­mond expressed the sen­ti­ment of many oth­ers in busi­ness in down­town Delaware dur­ing the third read­ing of a pro­posed zon­ing change intended to help city offi­cials bet­ter deal with appli­cants seek­ing tem­po­rary per­mits to set up mobile food ser­vices in down­town Delaware.

The largest real estate devel­oper in the down­town Delaware area, Dia­mond rep­re­sents between $10 mil­lion to $12 mil­lion in revi­tal­iza­tion to the busi­nesses in the area, he said.

One of those busi­nesses includes the Old Bag of Nails, a build­ing that was empty for about seven years before being trans­formed into what it is today. That busi­ness rep­re­sents a $1.5-million invest­ment, employs about 70 peo­ple and has an approx­i­mate $300,000 payroll.

When the busi­ness decided to locate in Delaware, it had to pay sev­eral dif­fer­ent kinds of fees, whereas, a mobile food ven­dor only pays a $25 per­mit fee to set up shop.

Frances Hamil­ton, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the non­profit Main Street Delaware, downtown’s pro­mo­tional orga­ni­za­tion, asked that coun­cil rein­sert an exclu­sion zone that would limit where the ven­dors could set up shop so that tran­sient ven­dors can­not oper­ate in direct com­pe­ti­tion with the 18 down­town restaurants.

A down­town busi­ness owner, Joanne Meyer of the Back­stretch Bar, said she isn’t opposed to hav­ing tran­sient ven­dors in downtown.

“I view the ven­dors as adding more diver­sity,” Meyer said.

But Meyer was in the minority.

Al Myers, owner of Choffey’s Cof­fee and Con­fec­tions, said the mobile ven­dors should be held to the same rigid his­toric stan­dards to cre­ate a level play­ing field for all.

The guide­lines at issue involve tem­po­rary uses (defined as a tem­po­rary set up less than 45 days) in the his­toric dis­trict. Any tem­po­rary out­door use for less than 45 days is reviewed by city staff and can bypass a hear­ing at HPC.

How­ever, the same com­mis­sion will review those tem­po­rary out­door uses that are longer than 45 days.

The city’s cur­rent zon­ing calls for a fee and appli­ca­tion process through the HPC since a mobile ven­dor would present an envi­ron­men­tal change in the his­toric dis­trict, the area that the com­mis­sion oversees.

After the city plan­ning commission’s dis­cus­sion on the issue last month, it rec­om­mended that no exclu­sion zone be included. Fol­low­ing the pub­lic feed­back and coun­cil dis­cus­sion at Monday’s meet­ing, coun­cil decided to send the issue back to the city’s plan­ning com­mis­sion with the rec­om­men­da­tion that the exclu­sion zone be included again.

Posted by Melissa Mackey on Jun 14 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.