The Westbrook City Council could delay a move to eliminate trash pickup at certain apartment buildings after hearing from landlords upset by the move at a workshop Monday night.
Every landlord that spoke at the workshop spoke out against the elimination of trash pickup at apartment buildings with four to nine units. After hearing them, several councilors said they might favor putting off the decision until a discussion of the city’s recycling program takes place in the spring.
With the proposal, the city was attempting to reduce its overall trash collection costs by a little more than $30,000. The city currently services about 70 four-unit buildings and about 35 five-to-nine-unit buildings with about 550 units altogether.
At a July 3 meeting, landlords spoke out against the proposal, and, as a result, the council voted to table the item until its Aug. 7 meeting and hold the workshop in the meantime.
Landlords told councilors Monday the city was treating them unfairly after they had invested in the community.
“What you’re doing is you’re kind of sending a message saying, ‘If you come here and put your hard work into it, put your money into the buildings, you might get kicked in the teeth a couple of times with taxes,'” said Brown Street owner Gary Miller.
Miller said that by adding additional costs for trash pickup on top of the increase in property taxes as owners improve their buildings, the city is encouraging owners to avoid improvements and “flip” their properties instead. Miller was against the additional costs, but favored making costs uniform no matter how many units are in a building.
“If you’re going to go down that route, it should be for everybody,” he said.
Monroe Avenue owner Henry Gagnon agreed, saying he’s found that two- and three-unit buildings tend to generate more garbage than buildings with a higher number of units because the buildings with more units tend to have single-bedroom units, which generate less trash.
“I don’t think there should be a cutoff at all,” Gagnon said. “To me, it’s all or none. Everybody should pay their fair share.”
Dave Charest, owner of several buildings in Westbrook, said he’s invested a great deal of money into his buildings, only to have the city increase his taxes as his property values go up. To him, additional costs for trash pickup are unfair and something he wouldn’t want to pass on to his tenants.
“I want to scream. That’s the wrong approach,” said Charest. “There’s got to be a better way. Don’t pick on us landlords who are trying to provide for the mostly low-income. A lot of mine are one-bedrooms. They’re struggling as it is.”
Owner Phil Charest asked the council to hold off on any decision and form a committee including landlords to look into the city’s options. He said he was against the proposal and that he felt the city was making hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes off apartment buildings without providing services for them. For himself, he said he has 13 units with only two small children who are not yet of school age and, therefore, no burden to the city.
Throughout the night, owners voiced a variety of concerns, including not wanting to pass costs on to tenants, having to eliminate parking spaces for dumpsters and also troubles arising from having the dumpsters.
“My driveway will look like hell,” said Mechanic Street owner Leo Daniel, who also said a dumpster would ruin the attractive look of his building. He said he’d have to cut down trees, eliminate a parking space and take down clotheslines to bring one in.
Daniel said the smell of a dumpster would attract gulls and skunks, and the single-family homes surrounding him would be against having a dumpster next to them. He also said he thought the single-family homes around him generate more trash than his building because he encourages recycling.
Several times discussion returned to what the proper cutoff number of units should be for pickup at apartments. Currently Westbrook picks up trash at buildings of up to nine units. That’s inconsistent, however, with surrounding communities.
According to City Administrator Jerre Bryant, most communities in the area have cutoffs in the three-to-six unit range. Portland has always had a cutoff of three units. However, under its pay-per-bag program, it is increasing that number to 10 units, according to Bryant.
Discussion also centered on a recycling program for the city, with many of the landlords favoring a pay-per-bag system. The city and the council have up to this point put off implementing a recycling system because they’re waiting to see if Regional Waste Systems makes changes to its services in the spring.
Councilors John O’Hara and Ed Symbol both said they thought eliminating trash pickup at certain apartments would be a moot point considering the city would be looking at an overall recycling and trash pickup overhaul in the spring.
“After hearing all the comments tonight, I just don’t think we’re going to get to a solution by October when we need to implement this,” said Symbol. The city had planned to make the change in trash pickup at the beginning of October, if councilors had voted to change it. “And each month we put it off, the savings is less and less. So why, in the end, try to save five or ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars when it’s just going to tick everybody off.”
Symbol said he would rather find the $30,000 somewhere else in the city’s $50 million budget. He said he would be in favor of putting the issue off until the spring, and Council President Brendan Rielly agreed.
The Monday workshop broke up with some levity and landlord Gary Miller thanking the council for listening, the mood in stark contrast to the somber and frustrated mood of the July 3 meeting.
At its Aug. 7 meeting, the council will make a decision whether to postpone a vote on the item until the spring. The Aug. 7 meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in room 114 of Westbrook High School. Rielly encouraged all those in attendance at the workshop to attend.
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