Mechanicsville food truck "rally" proposal

This week, in Newswest, Lorrie Marlow wrote an excellent piece touching on her concerns about a recent food truck "rally" proposal at Richcraft's Parkdale Avenue site. The proposal, for the corner of Lyndale and Parkdale, is for up to three food trucks during weekdays - but only after property owner, Richcraft, receives a demolition permit for the two houses and former Cottage restaurant.

Ms. Marlow raises a number of important concerns. First and foremost, the loss of the two homes as affordable housing concerns many of us. It's part of a trend we've seen of developers buying tracts of land, receiving zoning approval for condo or apartment towers, demolishing the existing housing, then sitting on the property for even years at a time. At a time when we're welcoming new refugees to the city, and facing a housing crisis, this trend is perverse.

The deck is stacked against us. One of the first things I established when taking office was that while we have leverage to deny demolition permits when no new housing is to be imminently built, the City has no legal leverage to force developers to return housing stock to the rental or other market. Developers move in, cap services, and let the properties decline. They are usually unwilling to even consider restoring the housing to the market, and the choice the City faces is either to deny demolition permits - which implies slow decline and property standards and other issues that end up costing the taxpayer time and nuisance - or to allow demolitions to proceed to at least ensure lands are cleaned up. To read more on this issue, see the excellent article by James Valcke, head of the Hintonburg Community Association, also in the most recent issue of Newswest.

So far in my term, we've had one reasonably successful negotiation with Richcraft to make them find ways of putting commercial properties back on the market at Scott/Parkdale, and to write in multiple property standards conditions before extending a demolition permit. This will continue to be my approach moving forward. It may not always succeed, but we need to try.

Richcraft is also the owner at the Parkdale/Lyndale corner. While it is not willing to restore the existing structures to their former use, it is seeking permission to replace those with, as Ms. Marlow notes, a "food truck rally" until it moves ahead with the condo development approved last term. These would be three food trucks, likely serving the daytime crowd at Tunney's Pasture. For several weeks, we've been facilitating getting answers to the Mechanicsville Community Association's, and nearby condo owners' questions. As I've relayed to the developer, before any permission is granted to the food trucks, I and the community need assurances that:

• power will not come from generators, but from an appropriate on-site electrcial power supply
• there will be no amplified music
• garbage from the site will be removed daily
• any parking on the site be minimal, and at no time create a pedestrian hazard
• there is consideration to some additional benefit to the community.

Our early indications are that the builder is willing to abide by these conditions, but the Parkdale Mews Homeowners Association continues to have questions and concerns that Richcraft is working to answer.

The food trucks will not move ahead unless I'm satisfied that the community's concerns have been met, and that there is no widespread opposition to the proposal.