Coronado businesses and homeowners will soon pay more for trash fees after the city decided to increase rates and end subsidies for residents.
Coronado city councilmembers voted to raise fees by $3.63 for residents and $17.34 for commercial customers at the June 17 meeting — making the average monthly price around $31 and $153 respectively.
The rising costs are part of a trend in Coronado where solid waste fees have been increasing while subsidized rates have been decreasing for the past 10 years — leaving homeowners footing higher bills. A decade ago, Coronado single-family homes split the cost of trash services with the city 50-50. This fiscal year, residents paid around 85% of total costs.
Coronado isn’t the only local government raising trash fees. The city of San Diego will begin charging residents for trash pickup as the new fiscal year begins on July 1.
Sean Harris, a public works management analyst who presented the changes at a recent City Council meeting, said even with the increase, the single family rates remain among the lowest in San Diego County.
Ending the subsidies for single-family homes, multi-family units and the Coronado Cays Homeowners Association is estimated to save the city $350,000, according to Harris.
“We’ve been trying to get out of this subsidy business since 1999,” Councilmember Kelly Purvis said in the meeting. “It’s a good time to stop paying for garbage and have those funds for other things for the community.”
Since residents are already paying for most of the cost, Councilmember Mark Fleming said the impact would be minimal and ending subsidies would allow for a “clean slate.”
From the DocumentersThis story came in part from notes taken by Thomas Vedder, a San Diego Documenter, who attended a Coronado City Council meeting last month. The Documenters program trains and pays community members to document what happens at public meetings. Read the note.
In the past, the city subsidized waste management to encourage more recycling. The cost-sharing program once paid for a larger portion of its cost, but now, there’s less of a market for recyclables, according to Councilmember Carrie Downey.
Downey was the only vote against ending the subsidy immediately and pushed for a more gradual decrease. She said state law aims for the majority of city-generated waste to be recyclable, adding that continuing a subsidy could encourage recycling.
“It’s not like the city can’t afford it,” Downey said.
Coronado exclusively works with the waste collection and recycling company EDCO to supply the city’s trash removal services. Their agreement allows for annual rate increases based on factors like landfill fees, fuel and oil costs, the San Diego Regional Consumer Price Index and recycled secondary market price expectations.
The city’s website cites the substantial rise in disposal costs as the primary driver of the rate increase.
After initiating the change in April, only two signed protest forms were submitted to the city. Both the fee increase and the end of solid waste subsidies are effective July 1.
