Charlotte will continue to offer city trash collection for people living in townhomes and condos, but the city may still eliminate service for apartments.
The city’s Solid Waste Services had studied whether it would make sense to only pick up garbage for single-family homes, but an outcry from townhomes and condo owners caused the city to scrap that plan.
About 24,000 townhomes and 9,000 condos would have been affected. Residents had said it was unfair that they would pay the same property tax rate as single-family homes while losing garbage pickup, one of the city’s core services.
The City Council environment committee discussed trash pickup Monday.
If the council decides to move forward with the latest plan, about 103,000 apartments would no longer get city trash service as of July 2017.
The city currently charges $25 per unit for apartment trash collection from dumpsters but loses money at that rate, which is in part why city staff wants to end the service. From there the issue quickly devolved into one of affordable housing though, with Mayor Jennifer Roberts and Council Members Al Austin concerted that ending subsidized city trash collect would drive up rents.
City staff note that high-end apartments also get the same subsidy, that the subsidy isn’t, as Assistant City Manager Hyong Yi put it, “an inefficient way to help the low-income population.”
