Dive Brief:

• Albany, NY’s property owners who lease small apartment buildings will begin paying for municipal trash collections this year. Some of the property owners said they will pass the cost to their renters.
• Owners of two- to four unit buildings will incur an annual $180 per unit garbage collection fee. One unit in each building will be exempt.
• The fee will generate $1.5 million in revenue for the city, Mayor Kathy Sheehan said, as reported in News10.com. The city will review the fee annually.

Dive Insight:

Municipalities are rethinking ways to stay financially stable while managing their trash. Through their strategizing, some have been guarded about fee hikes, while some have found it necessary after a long-standing position of imposing no fees. In regions that have approved increases, there, unsurprisingly, has been opposition.

Now, some of Albany’s property owners are voicing their complaints.

"I feel it’s very unfair because we are small landlords," Albany’s Sandesh Naik said to News10. "We don’t have deep pockets."

Some have protested that the city is looking to capitalize at property owners’ expense. However, Mayor Kathy Sheehan said, "We’re not looking to make money on this. We’re looking to start to offset the cost to the city of providing this service."

Naik and other property owners objected that they will have to pass the increased to their tenants, who they said are on tight budgets and will not be able to afford the higher rent.