OAKLAND — Years in the making, proposed regulations could vastly change the landscape in Oakland for food trucks and pushcart kitchens that have become a growing element of urban living nationwide.

Under those rules, food trucks and pushcarts could potentially operate in all seven City Council districts. The current program, in place since 2001, permits trucks and pushcarts only in districts 5, 6 and 7, including Fruitvale in District 5 and International Boulevard in East Oakland in District 7.

“Group sites,” or clusters of trucks and carts, are currently permitted only in districts 1, 2, 3 and 4, areas including North Oakland, West Oakland, downtown, the area east of Lake Merritt, Grand Lake and the northern hills area.

If the rules are approved, vendors could be issued permits to operate along West Grand Avenue in West Oakland and along Hegenberger Road from the Coliseum BART station parking lot to Doolittle Drive, as well as wide swaths along Broadway from 40th Street to Jack London Square.

The Broadway corridor would extend farther north, to just beyond the Ridge (formerly Rockridge) shopping center at 51st Street and Broadway, most of Telegraph Avenue from the Berkeley city limit south through Temescal to downtown, and the streets around Lake Merritt and along Grand Avenue from downtown past Grand Lake Theatre toward Piedmont.

The proposal does not mean, however, that these and other permitted locations will soon become bumper-to-bumper smorgasbords of competing eateries, or even akin to the weekly Friday night event at the Oakland Museum of California, where more than a dozen trucks serve long lines of customers. The regulations call for no more than one vendor per block.

With construction underway on a new bus rapid transit route on International, vending in the public right of way would be limited to pushcarts, at least until a year after the line is complete.

Although some clusters of carts and trucks would be allowed, the proposal calls for 300-foot buffer zones between vendors. The carts and trucks could not operate within 100 feet of existing restaurants or 500 feet of schools, unless the vendor is offering fare that school leaders deem wholesome.

The proposal calls for setting aside 50 parking spaces throughout the city for food trucks. These would be on blocks that do not already have traditional restaurants, planner Devan Reiff said in discussing the proposal with the Planning Commission.

For the first year, the plan is to issue permits to as many as 100 food trucks and 100 pushcart or stationary carts to operate seven days a week. Beyond that, separate permits would be available to operate in 50 parking spots within public rights of way. Vendors in those spots would be limited to five days per week.

Currently, there are 80 food trucks in the Alameda County database, Reiff said, although “we think there are far more than 100.” While planners expect competition for the permits, it may also turn out that 100 could prove to be too many, he said.

Priority would be given first to current permit holders and then to past city permit holders.

Permit fees, which start at $350, would ultimately cost more than $1,500 for each food truck by the time a $600 enforcement fee, $100 excess litter fee, $313 fire inspection fee for vendors cooking with gas and additional zoning clearance and business taxes are included.

The fees for pushcarts would be about $500 less, because they do not require fire inspections and enforcement costs are expected to be less, Reiff said.

For a full kitchen truck, Alameda County also requires an environmental health permit that costs about $900.

Just before Christmas, the Planning Commission voted to submit the proposed regulations to the City Council, with an eye toward expanding the program by summer. The City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will hold a public meeting on the new rules on Feb. 28 at 1:30 p.m.; further public hearings are expected in March.

The city plans to review the regulations 12 to 18 months after they start.

Reiff said permits would be issued in coordination with the city administrator hiring up to three new permit enforcement officers. The $600 enforcement fee would go toward their salaries.

Vendors could potentially operate 20 hours a day, from 7 a.m. until 3 a.m., something the current program in place since 2001 already allows.

The proposal notes that about 20 vendors currently operate late at night. Part of the permitting process would include consideration of the vendors’ track record and the character of the neighborhood where they want to operate late night vending, Reiff said.

“It’s not just taco trucks any more,” Emilia Otero told the Planning Commission. Otero, who began advocating on behalf of vendors in the Fruitvale District in the late 1990s, cited the diversity of food now offered.

“There’s a lot of people benefiting from this,” she said.

Contact Mark Hedin at 510-293-2452, 408-759-2132 or mhedin@bayareanewsgroup.com.