In Sydney’s Little India, Raj has to close his food cart by 7pm – or face council’s wrath

At his Chill ‘N’ Grill restaurant in Harris Park’s Little India precinct, just south of Parramatta, Raj Sagwal has a problem.

Like other businesses on Wigram Street, the Indian-Australian has catered to the area’s growing number of night-time visitors seeking a takeaway meal by serving cheap panipuri and steamed momos from a mobile food van in the small garden at the front of his restaurant.

Raj Sagwal and business partner Garry Bajaj in front of their Chill ‘N’ Grill Indian Restaurant in Wigram Street, Harris Park.Credit: Wolter Peeters

But after the City of Parramatta began cracking down on vendors in the area who operated past 7pm – contravening zoning rules – Sagwal has decided his only option is to shut up the cart.

“In Harris Park the dinner time is 8.30pm. At 7pm, no one is eating anything,” he said.

Although many of the houses have since become restaurants and stores, Wigram Street is zoned as residential.

The state government’s zoning laws say food carts in a residential area without a new development application must cease business by 7pm. On a street zoned as mixed-use, such as the one just one block across from the Chill ‘N’ Grill, similar carts operate late into the evening.

A spokesperson for the council said it was “legally obliged to undertake regulatory action to address non-compliances of unauthorised activity”.

But City of Parramatta staff said they were forced to act after receiving more than 200 complaints from residents “relating to the adverse impacts on residential amenity caused by the quantity of mobile food trucks/carts and their trading hours in the residential Heritage Conservation Area of Harris Park”.

“Concerns were also raised in relation to excess rubbish, hooning by vehicles, frequent traffic and pedestrian congestion,” staff wrote in council papers.

In addition, the council found many vendors had breached development rules by undertaking unauthorised alterations and additions to heritage items or properties without lodging a development application.

One Harris Park home currently on the market advertises that its backyard is leased to a food truck company until 2028, for about $2300 a week.

Harris Park Residents Group founder Teresa Llewellyn-Evans, who has lived in the area for 17 years, said the suburb’s takeaway economy had caused huge amounts of litter, particularly from Indian “sweets on a stick”.

“We have so many businesses in three little streets in Harris Park, and that creates [a large] number of people,” she said, criticising the council for promoting Little India in Harris Park as a tourism destination on its website and local signage, while residents struggled to find parking.

Other carts such as this one operate late into the night as they are in mixed-use zones.Credit: Dean Sewell

“We’ve got nothing against Indians, but in our community we’ve got Indians who think it’s terrible,” she said, referring to the influx of diners at the makeshift restaurants.

“Our friends who are Indians say [they] came to Australia to escape that. When they go out to a restaurant they want to eat inside, not in a car park.”

David Dilley, who lives and works on a nearby street, said the business owners who first complained about the crackdown to the council did not live in the area.

“They go home presumably to a quiet neighbourhood where they don’t suffer the effects that we’re left with here, the consequences of their business,” he said.

“You can almost set your watch to it, about 10.30pm, a number of souped-up cars do circuits for at least 45 minutes to an hour.”

Before it launched the enforcement blitz, the City of Parramatta held community information sessions around the area to inform local owners of their responsibilities. It also held a three-month amnesty, allowing owners to fix up their sites.

NSW Night-time Economy Minister John Graham – who has boasted about  Little India’s success in the past – referred questions to Planning Minister Paul Scully, who said he was “happy” to discuss possible zoning changes with the council.

Sagwal closed his cart completely before he copped a fine. But he said the late night cheap eats previously on offer in Harris Park will be missed amid cost-of-living pressures.

“There are no residents living on Wigram Street. All of them are grocery stores, shops, restaurants … It’s one of the popular streets now,” he said.

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