Some people think it isn't fair that the owners of single-family homes and multi-family homes of up to 4 units have trash pickup covered by the city while condominium owners do not.
AGAWAM — City Councilor Cecilia P. Calabrese has spearheaded an effort for condominium owners to be reimbursed for the cost of their trash collection to create parity with the owners of single-family homes, whose trash collections costs are covered by the city.
Cecilia Calabrese Calabrese said Monday that she has come up with a resolution to that effect with City Councilor Dennis J. Perry that she has submitted to the Law Department to make sure it is in the proper legal form. Calabrese said she is hopeful of getting the resolution before the City Council sometime in September.
Calabrese said it is an issue of fairness because condominium owners have their property taxed at the same rate as people who own single-family homes. Trash collection for single-family homeowners as well as for the owners of buildings with up to four housing units is provided as a service covered by their property tax bills.
“They pay the same (in property taxes) if not more than owners of single-family home,” she said of condominium owners.
The resolution provides for condominium associations to bill the city quarterly for trash collection with the money benefiting individual condominium owners. There is a provision capping the reimbursements so that the city would not pay any more for condominium trash pickup than it costs it to serve single-family homeowners, according to Calabrese.
“I tried to keep it as simple as possible,” Calabrese said of the resolution.
The issue came to head in July when a number of condominium owners complained about the situation during the City Council’s public hearing on the fiscal 2014 municipal budget.
One of those residents, Elaine M. Carlson, of 122 Brookfield Lane at the Longbrook Estates condominium complex, said the issue is one of fairness.
Carlson said city officials have said the city can’t come onto condominium roads to pick up trash because they are private property. However, Carlson said the city does pick up recyclables from condominium projects and benefits from selling the recyclables.
“The situation is totally unfair,” Carlson said. “All we are asking is that they pick up our trash.”
However, Tracy M. DeMaio, the city’s solid waste coordinator, said the condominium complexes have their own private agreement with the city’s waste hauler, Republic Services of Chicopee to have their recyclables collected. She said the city does get money for the sale of the recyclables but that it all goes for environmental purposes such as providing recycling containers for condominium owners.
Mayor Richard A. Cohen said the city’s waste hauler has a contract with the condominium complexes to pick up their recyclables, a private arrangement that does not involve the city.
Cohen estimated the cost of picking up trash at condominium complexes at about $300,000 year.
He said his office is looking into the matter as it has been an issue in the city for many years.