Home >  Local News >  Neighborhoods

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

By Timothy McNulty, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

City Council tentatively approved raising garbage collection fees yesterday for apartment buildings and nonprofit organizations, and charging residents who place large amounts of bulky waste at the curb for pickup.

The city already charges for pickups at apartment buildings with six or more units and from nonprofit organizations, such as schools, churches and museums, but the rates were last raised in 1997. The Public Works Department wants to double them next year, to generate an extra $500,000 for the city.

The city also plans to audit garbage routes to make sure it is being paid for all the garbage it is collecting. Public Works consultant Jim Cosman told council a recent check showed that some 100 apartment buildings and institutions, including some Carnegie museums and libraries, had not been paying for garbage collection. They have since been billed, he said.

The new fees would vary according to container size and frequency of pickup. The city would charge $30 a month for collecting a 2-cubic-yard container once weekly and up to $300 a month for collecting a 6-cubic-yard container five times per week.

City homeowners, who do not pay garbage collection fees, are allowed to place three bulky items, such as mattresses and televisions, at the curb every two weeks. Under the new fee schedule, they would be charged $75 minimum to pick up more than three items.

Residents unaware of the rules would be allowed to remove extra items from the curb before being charged, Public Works Director Guy Costa said, and urged to take the items back to the curb the following week.

Next year, the city plans to pick up bulky waste weekly instead of every two weeks.

Costa said the main reason for the residential bulk collection charges is to prevent landlords from piling bulk waste outside their apartment buildings, particularly in Oakland, where mountains of trash line the sidewalks every year when students move out.

Council tentatively approved the fees in a 3-1 vote, with William Peduto voting "no," Jim Ferlo and Bob O'Connor abstaining, and Twanda Carlisle, Jim Motznik and Gene Ricciardi absent at voting time.

Peduto said he supports garbage collection fees but on all residents, not just those in large apartment buildings and condominiums. Ferlo complained that residents had not been formally notified of the fee changes, and O'Connor questioned why some institutions had not been paying the fees.

A final vote is set for Monday, which is council's last meeting of the year.

In a busy day yesterday, sandwiched between the final city budget vote last week and the year's final meeting next week, council also issued final approvals to all sorts of measures.

Included were plans for a "no-scalping zone" on the North Shore where fans can legally buy and sell game tickets; a pilot park ranger program for city parks; a reassessment of tax-exempt city properties; and new boundaries for the nine council districts.

The nine districts had to be changed to conform with the 2000 Census, which showed the city's population had dropped 10 percent, to 334,563 residents. A reapportionment commission recommended new lines in October that tried to give each district roughly the same number of constituents, while keeping changes to a minimum.

The changes had to be approved before the municipal elections next year, when seats in Districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 will be up for re-election. Every district except District 1 on the North Side was changed a little bit, and at the final vote today only Councilman Sala Udin objected, because of a change in the Hill District.

Udin unsuccessfully tried today to keep his Hill District seat in council District 6 and prevent it from being moved to council's District 7, which is represented by Jim Ferlo. His amendment failed when no other council member agreed to second his motion.

That proved to be the biggest fight of the entire city reapportionment debate: Since all City Council members are Democrats, there has not been a court fight over the new map as there has been in Allegheny County Council.

City Council's reapportionment report and maps can be viewed on city government's official Web site, http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us.

The ticket-selling area approved yesterday is supposed to be overseen by the Sports & Exhibition Authority with the help of the Pirates and Steelers. Fans would be able to go to the no-scalping area to buy and sell seats for face values or less, which is allowed by state law.

Peduto started the initiative after council decided last month to eliminate the peddling licenses the city has issued to ticket sellers. He considered it a compromise that would allow for legal ticket exchanges, but a lawyer for a group of ticket sellers told council yesterday that it was discriminatory and would hurt the sellers' livelihood.

The no-scalping zone program is scheduled to start in April, in time for the baseball season. A site may also be designated near Mellon Arena.

Council approved a plan to spend $75,000 on a pilot park ranger program, in which four uniformed city employees are to patrol the major city parks, giving visitors information about park programs and notifying police about criminal activity.

The money will jump-start the program, which the city wants to primarily fund with private grants.

Council also approved resolutions by Councilman Alan Hertzberg calling for a reassessment of tax-exempt property in the city. He said an updated list of the properties would help Pittsburgh and other cities lobby for state reimbursements for their property tax losses.

Hertzberg's bills ask both Allegheny County and the Murphy administration to perform the reassessments.