John Gerakiteys, who runs the coffee cart at the Carillon, has secured a hawker's licence for Bowen Park and plans to park his cart there on weekdays, starting Tuesday.

He had to buy two car-parking spaces and pay for a gate and will have to move his cart each night. This was the issue on which Brodburger came unstuck, finding itself in years of dispute with the National Capital Authority after opening in 2009. Facing eviction, the burger van eventually negotiated to move instead into the glassworks cafe in Kingston.

But the coffee cart is only the beginning for Mr Gerakiteys, who is also trying to get permission for a permanent structure, to be called The Pie and Dog Cafe, which, he said, would be styled on Sydney's famous Harry's Cafe de Wheels, and would be open seven days, from early till into the night. His offer is to pay for the construction and donate the building back to the government at the end of a long and "very good lease".

But he has found himself mired in bureaucracy at every turn. It had taken him six months just to get a hawker's licence, he said.

"You go to one stage then they want something else," he said. "We had to go to the roads department … then the next thing I know we've got the rangers involved in it and you can't go on the grass, all this sort of stuff. You need a police report, so we do that one. When you jump one hurdle and you make everything right they want to throw something else into the pot. Why didn't you tell me this all in one go? We need somebody that can streamline this whole business."

Long-time lobbyist Peter Conway is helping Mr Gerakiteys, and said for most people the bureaucratic nightmare was too much and they simply gave up.

"I can understand the frustration, it just goes round and round," he said. "They want to enliven the lake foreshore, they're continually making grand vision statements about enlivening the lake … and it's taken about six months now and we're yet to have a meeting with the essential bureaucrats."

ACT government departments acted as silos, with no central contact point, he said.

"It's beyond me after 20 something years of self-government, we can have governments organise trade deals and international treaties, why we don't just have a single application form for NCA and ACTPLA sites? Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to design one."

Mr Conway said he had finally got approval in principle from ACT government ministers for the cafe and a response from the National Capital Authority. The next step was to lodge a development application. The authority told him the design of any permanent structure "would be subject to rigorous design critique and assessment against the [national capital] plan by the NCA, subject to public consultation and consideration by the board of the NCA".

Mr Gerakiteys hopes to have a petition with 270 signatures tabled in the ACT Assembly this week, calling on the government to support a permanent hospitality kiosk at East Basin.