Food truck fight at Christchurch Arts Centre resolved
The Christchurch Arts Centre site has been struggling with funding and more food trucks were seen as one way to increase revenue.
Photo:
RNZ / Adam Burns
A fight for food trucks to remain at the Christchurch Arts Centre has succeeded - but the site will not be home to as many trucks as the centre would have liked.
The issue has been contentious amongst business owners in the central city for some time, including when the Christchurch Central Business Association
presented an unexpected petition
against the Arts Centre's application for 33 food trucks on site last year.
The city council has granted the Arts Centre resource consent for 20 food trucks on site, rather than the 33 the Centre had hoped for.
The opening hours have also been reduced from the initial application, when it was requested the food trucks be open at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
Food trucks at the site will now be limited to opening for a maximum of 50 hours a week, but can operate anytime between 10am to 10pm, seven days a week.
The site had been
struggling with funding
and the application for more food trucks was a way to increase revenue.
The Arts Centre Trust owns New Zealand's largest collection of heritage buildings - in central Christchurch - on behalf of the city's residents and leases them to creative and commercial tenants to foster the arts and culture.
Arts Centre director Philip Aldridge welcomed the decision by the council and said he was grateful it had come to a compromise.
"The food trucks generate essential revenue that helps us preserve New Zealand's largest collection of heritage buildings and sustain our role as a thriving centre for the arts," he said.
"We have reduced the number of food trucks and limited opening hours - we hope that will be seen as a good compromise."
Aldridge said the concerns raised about the food trucks had surprised him, given they had a long history and had been in place for many decades at the Arts Centre.
He said the site would look forward to welcoming new food operators.
Canterbury Hospitality stalwart Peter Morrison said the decision from the Arts Centre to reduce the number of food trucks on site was a great compromise.
"We have to be fair to the Arts Centre and fair to the city's hospitality operators - this is a great way to do that. Christchurch is New Zealand's second largest city and big enough to sustain a variety of hospitality offerings," he said.
He said the Arts Centre had hosted food trucks for a very long time and provided a great way for budding hospitality operators to step into the industry.
"Some of Christchurch's iconic eateries, including Dimitris Greek Food, began life in an Arts Centre food truck. It is a great pathway into business, particularly for migrant families."
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