The Syracuse Common Council discussed redefining occupancy standards for properties housing 10 or more residents, due to waste management practices, during Wednesday’s council meeting.

The proposed amendment is a product of recent conversations among city officials and sanitation crewmembers to identify changes that could simplify community waste management.

By current standards, properties are “Commercial Waste Generating” if they house 10 or more residents. These properties usually produce more waste than the average household. The measure in debate proposes reducing that minimum from 10 to four people.

If passed, sanitation workers would stop collecting waste from these properties.

According to Corey Dunham, the city’s chief operating officer, the amount of waste produced appears to be increasing steadily. Cutting down the resident occupancy standard would save $300,000 at minimum, she added.

“That’s how much it costs for us to dispose of trash, and that cost is going up, due to factors outside of our control,” she said. “Nobody wants anybody’s trash anymore. “

The Department of Public Works employs more than 80 truck drivers to collect waste from residential units on a weekly basis — a workforce that Dunham says is far outnumbered by the number of “stops” that are currently necessary.

Syracuse appears to be an outlier in this regard. Surrounding cities in Onondaga County have also limited the residential count to three or four units.

Some councilors expressed concerns over mirroring the policies of other cities to address Syracuse’s unique needs.

“Should we jump off a bridge because certain municipalities do?” one of the dozens of residents at the meeting asked. “I don’t think that kind of conversation (is) necessary.”

Sanitation workers, who were present in the council meeting, expressed personal concerns on the matter, with one worker adding that it would be a lot more efficient by reducing the average load of “two hundred and thirty-six tons of trash alone in one day.”

“There really is no justification to keep it at 10, other than that’s what we’ve always done,” Dunham said.

Because the city’s shifting economic landscape, classifying more properties as “commercial” seemed appropriate to many present at the meeting because of the larger revenues that were now being brought in.

While speaking of the amendment’s financial impact on DPW, Councilor-at-Large Khalid Bey addressed the potential difficulty of this transition for larger households in Syracuse.

“Change is hard for a lot of people,” he said.

Other business

Members of City Hall are seeking to increase funding for census outreach efforts in undercounted areas. These areas include citizens like the city’s refugee, people experiencing homelessness and residents who have previously been incarcerated.

Published on September 4, 2019 at 9:11 pm

Contact Marnie: ammunozc@syr.edu