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Business News Politics

Cincinnati Expands, Streamlines Mobile Food Vending Zone Program

Last month Cincinnati City Council approved changes to the city’s Mobile Food Vending Program, which oversees food truck operators choosing to take advantage of mobile food vending zones throughout the city.

According to city officials, two new mobile food vending zones will be added in Over-the-Rhine. The changes were approved 8-1 by city council, with Councilmember Christopher Smitherman (I) casting the lone opposition vote.

The first is at Washington Park and will accommodate up to three food trucks at any given time. This location, officials say, will be open to mobile food vendors from 6am to 3pm, and will be open during evening hours based on agreements between the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) and those vendors who are in the program.

Cincinnati Food Truck at Court Street

The second Over-the-Rhine location will be at Twelfth and Clay Streets, and is the result of much negotiation with nearby restaurants that had been wary of a mobile food vending zone near their establishments. This location will accommodate up to two food trucks at a time, and unlike the Washington Park zone, will allow vendors to operate between 6pm and 3:30am.

The new Over-the-Rhine mobile food vending zones add to the other six locations in place throughout the city. According to Councilmember Laure Quinlivan (D), who first proposed legislation to create the mobile food vending program in 2010, those who would like to see mobile food vending zones established elsewhere throughout the city can contact her office at laure.quinlivan@cincinnati-oh.gov.

City officials say that all of the following official mobile food vending zones are open seven days a week, and are available to operators with mobile food vending licenses on a first come, first serve basis.

  • 12th/Clay Streets (6pm to 3:30am)
  • Court Street Market (6am -3pm)
  • Fountain Square/North Vine Street (6pm-3:30am)
  • Fountain Square/North Fifth Street (6am to 3:30am)
  • Fountain Square/South Fifth Street (6am to 3:30am)
  • Purple People Bridge (6am to 3:30am)
  • University Hospital (6am to 3:30am)
  • Washington Park zone (6am to 3pm)

“If you have additional mobile food vending zones you’d like to see created, please contact me to learn how to get it done,” Quinlivan stated. “The bottom line is that you need to get support for the new zone from nearby property owners.”

Cincinnati Food Truck Zones

Food truck operators interested in getting a mobile food vending license will not see their annual fees change from the current $600 for a six-month license or $1,000 for a full year. But, according to city officials, they will now apply through the Cincinnati Health Department in an effort to streamline the application and licensing process since the health department also must issue a health license for the food trucks.

Other approved changes include the elimination of the non-refundable $25 application fee, and structural changes for the mobile food vendor zone at the foot of the Purple People Bridge to allow for more consistent space availability for food truck operators.

Due to the court-issued restraining order on the City of Cincinnati, the changes could not take effect immediately, and will finally go into effect this Friday, May 17 following the required 30-day waiting period.

To celebrate, the Cincinnati Food Truck Association, Quinlivan and community leaders will gather at Washington Park this Friday at 11:30am to celebrate the new food truck zones.

“I’m excited our program has created jobs and livened up city streets,” Quinlivan stated. “I’m told we now have 28 mobile food trucks in Cincinnati and we hope all of them participate in our program.”

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Business News Politics

Cincinnati’s Recommended Budget Calls for 201 Layoffs, Program Eliminations

Cincinnati City Manager Milton Dohoney released his recommended budget that makes a large number of cuts to fill the $35 million budget gap left behind following the State of Ohio’s reduction of $26 million in funding to the City of Cincinnati.

The original budget proposal from Dohoney included $25.8 million from an upfront payment included in the parking lease and modernization plan, which would have also included $3 million in annual payments thereafter. This proposal was approved 5-4 by City Council, but was put on hold by a local court until opponents were able to file petitions and get the proposal put on this November’s ballot for public vote.

“Though a legal victory is being vigorously pursued, the ultimate resolution is not assured in time to affect what must be in place by June 1 to take effect July 1, 2013,” Dohoney explained. “Should a final legal victory be realized after July 1, the Administration would presume to move expeditiously to reverse some of the impacts of the cuts contained within the recommended budget.”

Cincinnati Mounted Patrol
Cincinnati’s mounted patrol would be cut entirely if City Council passes the recommended budget. Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

The end result of these cuts includes the elimination of 66 police officers, 71 fire fighters, 64 city employees, and the elimination of 60 vacant positions. The recommended budget will also eliminate funding for the following items:

  • Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance ($150,000)
  • Urban Agricultural Program ($65,000)
  • Heritage Events Subsidy – Opening Day Parade, St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Black Family Reunion, Juneteenth ($36,000)
  • Camp Washington, Fairview, Filson, Spring Grove Village, and Ziegler Pools ($167,650)
  • Bush Recreation Center in Walnut Hills ($127,710)
  • Energy Management Program ($100,010)
  • Mounted Patrol ($95,000)
  • Community Prosecution Program ($83,857)
  • Delinquent Accounts/Receivables Program ($75,460)
  • Claims Program ($55,680)
  • Tire Collection Program ($30,880)

In addition to the elimination of these programs, no funding is budgeted for either 2014 or 2015 as a result of limited General Fund resources.

Furloughs for City Management staff will also take place, and the City of Cincinnati would also use a larger amount of projected casino revenues to balance this budget, even though Dohoney has recommended against that in the past due to the unpredictability of these funds.

“While balancing a budget deficit with mostly cuts is not preferred, the timing of the new fiscal year coupled with the timing of the litigation over the parking deal makes it the only real option with a number this large,” Dohoney stated in a prepared release. “Our goal is going to be to recall staff as soon as possible and provide the best customer service we can deliver for the citizens in the meantime.”

A number of other measures are taken in the recommended budget to help close the budget gap, but the large amount of savings is realized through personnel layoffs. Dohoney has also recommended that the property tax millage increase from 5.7 mills to its maximum allowed 6.1 mills to raise an additional $1.3 million annually.

To help engage the public in this budget process, Cincinnati Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) has scheduled three public hearings. The first will take place at the Duke Energy Convention Center on Thursday, May 16 at 6:30pm, the second will occur on Monday, May 20 at 6:30pm at the College Hill Recreation Center, and the final meeting will take place at the Madisonville Recreation Center on Wednesday, May 22 at 6:30pm.

“My priority for the FY 2014 city operating budget is to make sure that all Cincinnati’s neighborhoods are safe and that we continue to attack blight that breeds crime,” Qualls stated. “As chair of the Budget and Finance Committee I will work to further reduce the number of layoffs for police, fire and health department personnel, to ensure that we keep all our neighborhoods safe and clean.”

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News Politics Transportation

Standing Room Only Crowd Packed Metropolis & Mobility Event

On Friday, April 19, UrbanCincy partnered with the Niehoff Urban Studio and hosted an event that showcased student work and included expert analysis and discussion of urban mobility issues in Cincinnati.

Approximately 100 people showed up to the collaborative studio space in Corryville to view the student work, and learn more about the challenges facing Cincinnati today and in the future.

Metropolis & Mobility: Bus Rapid Transit and Bikeway Planning focused on five proposed bus rapid transit and three bikeway corridors throughout Cincinnati. Engineering and planning students were paired together in groups to examine the issues and propose implementation strategies for those potential projects.

Students examining bus rapid transit focused on the Reading Road, Downtown, Hamilton Avenue, Vine Street, and Montgomery Road corridors. The students studying bikeway planning, meanwhile, examined the Wasson Way and Western Riverfront Trail and Mill Creek Greenway.

The event also included an expert panel discussion between Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) CEO Terry Garcia Crews, Parsons Brinckerhoff senior transportation planner Tim Reynolds, and Cincinnati Bike Center general manager Jared Arter.

Those interested in listening to the panel discussion can do so by streaming it online, or by subscribing to The UrbanCincy Podcast on iTunes and downloading episode 19.

One of the student proposals was to activate the Riverfront Transit Center and utilize it as a station for BRT and commuter express routes. Just four days after the Metropolis & Mobility event, the Business Courier reported that Metro was interested in doing just that.

Those who attended the event were also able to vote on their favorite project, which will then be profiled right here on UrbanCincy.com in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please enjoy the video put together on the Metropolis & Mobility event by our contributing videographer Andrew Stahlke.

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Development News

Cincinnati Recognized for Recent Planning Successes, Historical Achievements at APA

Last month the American Planning Association (APA) held its annual conference for planning professionals. The 2013 conference was held in Chicago and organizers made efforts to showcase planning efforts of The Second City.

The educational sessions at the conference are made up of presentations by planning officials across the country. A few of the sessions were hosted by Cincinnati Planning officials who highlighted some of Cincinnati’s recent planning successes.

Of the three sessions that featured Cincinnati city planners, one actually focused on the recently adopted PLAN Cincinnati comprehensive plan.

The Banks
Cincinnati and Hamilton County received a national award from the APA for the implementation of the Central Riverfront Master Plan and The Banks. Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

The plan was approved by the city in October 2012 and is the first long-term comprehensive planning vision of the city since 1980. The seminar also highlighted Cincinnati’s rich planning heritage as the city carries the noteworthy distinction of drafting the first ever city-wide comprehensive plan in the 1925 Master Plan. That plan, along with the 1907 Kessler Parks Plan, envisioned a walkable cityscape with an extensive parks system.

However, after World War II, the city drafted the 1948 Comprehensive Plan which proposed several highways and urban renewal projects. The 1948 plan was successfully implemented but instead of the promised revitalization of the city, the highway system and slum clearance policies supported by the plan drove the city’s population to the suburbs.

“The highway was unfortunately a successful implementation,” explained Gregory Dale from McBride Dale Clarion Associates, “Sixty years later we’re still trying to repair the damage.”

Presenters also highlighted how the Cincinnati’s Planning Department overcame the problems of being dissolved in 2002 and reconstituted in 2007.

“In some ways I think maybe if we had not been eliminated as a departments, maybe there would not be that strength today, maybe it wouldn’t have woken people up to see the importance of planning,” recalled Cincinnati Senior Planner Katherine Keough-Jurs.

She went on to say that she noticed the involvement and passion of participants in the new comprehensive plan was a positive sign that citizens were concerned about the future direction of the city. The citizen participation in the new plan highlighted residents desire for creating and reinvigorating walkable neighborhoods and commercial centers.

“The plan is unapologetically urban,”  Keough-Jurs told session attendees,”In many ways our new comprehensive plan returns to the vision of the 1925 plan.”

At the conference the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County received an Excellence in Planning award from the APA for the implementation of the Central Riverfront Master Plan. That plan, which was first developed in the late 1990’s when the stadiums and Fort Washington Way were proposed for reconstruction envisioned a new mixed-use riverfront neighborhood called The Banks.

In 2011 the first phase of the mixed-use neighborhood opened to the public and the second phase is slated to begin construction this year.

The planning department’s most recent project, the adoption of the final draft of the form-based code is on City Council’s Livable Communities Committee Agenda today for their 1pm meeting.

The code was approved by the city’s Planning Commission on March 7. Once the code wins approval from the committee it will go on to the full council for a vote. The city’s planning department is looking to meet with the four demonstration neighborhoods – Walnut Hills, Westwood, Madisonville, College Hill – in the coming months to move forward with changes in the zoning map to implement the form-based code.

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Up To Speed

The Myth of the Suburban Revival

The Myth of the Suburban Revival

Recent economics data released from the Brookings Institute have shown that job sprawl has spread outside of metro downtowns, including Cincinnati. Planning theorists however are at odds as to what this means with New Geography’s Joel Kotkin claiming the “triumph of suburbia” over the center city. However; his assertions seem to be based on several false assumptions in the market and does not take into account the millenial generations preference for walkable neighborhoods. Is this a City vs. Suburb debate or as Robert Steuteville claims a walkable vs. auto-dominated debate? More from Better Cities & Towns:

In his analysis, Kotlin ignores many inconvenient facts and trends that don’t fit his narrative of an inexorable, historical march to lower density in generation after generation. Real estate values have declined in the automobile-oriented suburbs relative to compact, mixed-use neighborhoods. There’s a growing preference for rental housing, and multifamily development has recovered far more quickly than single-family development. Multifamily development has taken on a new character in recent years. In the 1990s it was garden apartments in the suburbs. Now it is being built in urban, transit-served neighborhoods.