Three food trucks parked on a single lot would be a Food Truck Park under LDCA26-05, an amendment to the St. Johns County Land Development Code whose adoption hearing was item 9 on the commission’s agenda Tuesday morning. Among the things the amendment does is add both terms to Article XII, which is the article that holds the code’s definitions.

The mechanism is four separate edits to three articles, and the staff memorandum dated Aug. 24 sets them out in a list:

Add Food Trucks and Food Truck Parks as allowable uses within Highway Commercial, High Intensity Commercial, and Rural Commercial zoning categories. Add individual Food Trucks as a temporary use in certain zoning districts. Provide design standards, conditions, and limitations for Food Truck Parks. Add definitions for Food Trucks and Food Truck Parks.

The first of those is the one that decides where a park can go at all. The second is the one that decides whether a single truck can turn up for a weekend, and it is written tightly: food trucks alongside farmer markets and bazaars are allowable in any non-residential district for “not to exceed three days per event,” and in the CI, CHT, CHI, CW, CR and Planned districts an outdoor sales vendor including a food truck may appear “not to exceed one (1) time in one (1) month and not to exceed three (3) days each event.”

The standards, as Exhibit A prints them

The design standards would land at a new Section 6.08.50. Eleven of them, and none needs a planner to read.

What the standard sets The figure in Exhibit A
Hours of operation 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM
Separation between trucks no less than 10 feet, or the NFPA minimum, whichever is greater
Distance from any residential structure no closer than 100 feet
Seating a minimum of three seats per truck, in a designated eating and drinking area
Parking a minimum of five spaces, otherwise one space per three seats as for a restaurant
Solid waste no less than one trash receptacle per truck, plus central storage

Trucks must also meet the building setbacks of the district they sit in, cannot occupy required customer parking, must meet the accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act for sidewalks and restrooms, and must connect to water and wastewater under Section 6.04.12, “including but not limited to water connections, wastewater connections, and grease interceptors.”

Unpaved parking is allowed and has its own section. Under 6.08.42 the surface has to be stabilized with coquina, crushed stone or gravel, the apron onto a county or state road has to be paved, the whole of it counts as impervious surface for stormwater, and anything a fire truck drives on has to carry 80,000 pounds.

Where the hours came from

The board took the first reading on July 21 and did not vote on it. The memorandum records what happened instead:

No formal action was taken; however, based on public comment, the board requested a modification of the proposed hours of operation from 8 AM to 8 PM to 7 AM to 9 PM; these changes are made part of the proposed ordinance provided in Exhibit A.

Two hours of trading, one on each end, moved on the strength of people speaking at a hearing. That is the only change to the draft the memorandum attributes to the board.

The Planning and Zoning Agency heard the item on Aug. 6 and recommended approval 7-0, with one condition: that the design standards refer to the county’s noise ordinance. The condition is in Exhibit A as standard 11, which says a food truck park “shall not create excessive or unnecessary noise and shall operate consistent with the St. Johns County Noise Ordinance 2015-19.”

What the definitions actually do

The two new definitions in Article XII carry the weight, because they decide when a cluster of trucks stops being a group of vendors and becomes a use with standards attached to it.

Food Truck: a food sales business offering the retail sale, display, and accessory advertising of fresh prepared food, pre-cooked food, pre-packaged food, and prepared food from mobile food dispensing vehicles as defined in F.S. 509.102, or from a similar self-propelled conveyance such as ice cream trucks or canteen vehicles, or a non-fixed structure such as a food stand or food vending cart. Three (3) or more food trucks located on a single parcel constitute a Food Truck Park.

The Food Truck Park definition adds the qualifier that matters to anyone who runs an event: three or more trucks are a park when the parcel is “developed as a permanent market or food court,” and “the inclusion of three (3) or more Food Trucks at temporary events such as festivals or fairs shall not be considered a Food Truck Park.”

One letter, and it is about a zoning district that is not in this amendment

Staff received a single piece of correspondence on the amendment. It is from a property owner who wants to open a small food truck park on a General Commercial lot in West Augustine, and who told the Planning Division that CG is not among the districts this amendment reaches. The memorandum’s answer is that the correspondence “relates to the applicability of the proposed changes to the West Augustine Overlay District” and that staff “is working towards a separate LDC Amendment that will address the subject material specifically for the West Augustine Overlay.” So the question of whether a food truck park can open on a General Commercial lot in West Augustine is not answered by this amendment, and the county’s stated plan is a second one.

What is not published

The county’s business impact estimate, required under section 125.66(3)(a), Florida Statutes, is recited in the draft ordinance as “finding no direct detrimental economic impact on private, for-profit businesses in the County.” The estimate itself is not in the packet.

Neither is the result of Tuesday’s hearing. The Clerk’s board records index carries the Sept. 15 agenda and nothing behind Approved Minutes or Watch on GovTV, and seventeen of the nineteen meeting rows on that index do carry a video link. The ordinance takes effect when a certified copy is filed with the Florida Department of State, which is a date nobody has yet.