By Benjamin Millar
Plans are cooking for Maribyrnong’s first permanent food truck park.
A permit application has been lodged for a site on Williamson Road in Maribyrnong to host a bar and seven food trucks, serving food and drinks for up to 400 people at a time.
Plans for the 1960-square-metre site show seating areas, a shipping container converted into a bar and room for seven food trucks.
The premises would operate 6-11pm on Thursday evenings and 10am-11pm Friday to Sunday, hosting occasional live music and the screening of major sports events.
Food trucks have visited various locations around Maribyrnong for a number of years, particularly Coulson Gardens and Yarraville Gardens, but their numbers have dwindled since a permit system was introduced by Maribyrnong council in 2014.
A proposal for a food truck park at the Dream Factory in Footscray was rejected in 2016 after the site was deemed to be too close to the Coode Island major hazard facility.
A temporary park opened on a development site in Kingsville last summer, but if approved the new proposal would be the first long-term permanent site.
A town planning report lodged with the application suggests the proposal would improve the area’s overall amenity for people working and living nearby by providing “an alternative area for people to meet and socialise”.
“Recent Food Trucks establishments throughout Melbourne have generated a positive atmosphere throughout the surrounding area and generated opportunities for employment benefits for local residents as well as offering a tourist attraction,” it states.
“The proposed use will not detrimentally impact the surrounding residential setting and will provide an amenity which local residents will be able to utilise.”
The site has 11 carparking spaces, a shortfall of 58 spaces on planning requirements.
A traffic report concluded the shortfall would only generate “a low impact” given a large number of on-street and public parking spaces in the vicinity.
