By James Roxbury
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Harrisburg Park Holdings, LP. the owner and operator of Harrisburg Park Apartments, an affordable housing project located at 1410 South 15th street, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the City of Harrisburg.
The filing is an Action for Declaratory Judgment and refers to a February 9, 2015 letter sent to Harrisburg businesses stating that the City will be taking over collection of municipal waste and recycling within City limits.
The plaintiff states that the apartment complex has a contract with Republic Services, a private hauler who collects five (5) six (6) yard containers twice a week for a cost of $26,400 per year and claims that a Rate Sheet sent by the City of Harrisburg would raise the annual cost to $89,628.
"As a direct result of of the increase in the cost of their trash service, Plaintiff, because its business, rental of residential housing, has no other manner in which to create additional cash flow, will either have to incur unnecessary and unreasonable charges or attempt to negotiate a raise of the monthly payment amount HUD will pay Plaintiff in a Housing Assistance Payment for each apartment unit. As a result, if the housing assistance payment is raised, the rent paid by the low income families will rise. In the alternative, the cost increase in the garbage and trash removal service is so great that it will bankrupt the owner of the property, the Property will close, low income families will lose their housing and their housing and the inventory of affordable housing in the City of Harrisburg will decrease."
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Some background on the change in how Harrisburg collects trash.
Archive city council meeting 5.26.15
Harrisburg City Council Legislative Agenda.
COMMUNICATIONS
• Report from MSW Consultants regarding City Sanitation Services.
City collection is out of sight, out of mind.
The cost of water getting into dumpsters.
Susan Brown Wilson.
How much revenue have we lost in respect to accounts not paying.
Brad Koplinski.
Put or play, 35,000 ton a year.
Some accounts had waivers going back 20 years.
Sandra Reid.
Bulk items and illegal dumping.
Mayor Papenfuse.
Harrisburg school district, a loss of at least 10 million dollars during the Kohn years.
Mr. West.
The system was screwed up tremendously.
COURTESY OF THE FLOOR
Bill Cluck. The Environmental Advisory Council was not consulted.
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May 12, 2015.
Mayor Papenfuse sat down with members of the press Tuesday afternoon to discuss how the Harrisburg school district was under billed for trash collection.
We have found accounts where people were not paying anything thing all.