The City Council has tabled a plan to charge for collection.
AUBURN – Trash collection fees will mean higher rents for Auburn apartments, according to two area landlords.
Councilors tabled plans to begin charging for trash collections at apartment buildings until after an Oct. 15 meeting with area landlords. The city would charge $1.54 per apartment per week beginning in December, according to the plan. The new fee should generate $30,000 for the city in the current fiscal year, if approved.
“We’re businessmen,” said landlord Tim Ricker of 41 Gill St. “We have to pass it right along to our tenants, and they can’t afford any more increases. I certainly don’t think it’s fair for them.”
Assistant City Manager Mark Adams will meet with Auburn landlords on Oct. 15 to discuss the new fee. That meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the Auburn City Building.
The city currently does not collect trash or recycled trash at buildings with seven or more apartments. If the council agrees, the city will begin charging landlords with between four and seven apartments. Landlords living in their apartment buildings would be exempt from the fee.
Lewiston began charging for its trash collections earlier this summer, and Adams said Auburn’s policy is almost identical. Buildings with between four and seven apartments would be charged $1.54 per unit per week to have trash collected. For four-unit apartment buildings, that’s $320 per year.
The changes would apply to 209 apartment buildings in Auburn and generate an estimated $62,880 per year.
“We were directed to come up with program changes to save the city money,” Adams said. “That’s what this does.”
But Ross Bonney, a board member of the Lewiston Auburn Landlords Association, said the way the fee is structured creates an unfair tax on larger apartments.
“If we have a four-unit building and three-unit building and both pay their taxes, what’s the difference?” Bonney said. “The four-unit building now has to raise its rents to pay for trash collection. Where is the equality in that?”
City Manager Pat Finnigan said the new fee was the best way to preserve services for all apartment buildings.
“We are not stopping service and forcing those landlords to hire private haulers to collect their trash,” Finnigan said. “That would be even more expensive, I think.”
staylor@sunjournal.com
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