Residents of a 61-unit townhouse complex in Encino say they're outraged that the bill for collecting the property's trash and recycling may increase to more than $37,000 a month because of newly assessed add-on fees imposed by the area's city-designated trash hauler, Waste Management.
"We have no other choice. It's terrible," longtime Villa Espana Townhomes resident Julie Ditchik told the I-Team of the price hike, adding her and her neighbors' monthly fees for trash collection will go from $92 to more than $600 per unit.
"What are these people going to say when you raise the rate 574%?" asked homeowners association president Roz Ross, who said she unsuccessfully appealed to the company and the city for relief.
The city of Los Angeles requires most multi-unit residential buildings, like apartments, condos and townhomes, to contract for waste and recycling collection through a specific private waste firm, depending on the neighborhood, through the RecycLA program.
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The city caps the fees for bin and dumpster collection but allows the private firms to tack-on additional fees for opening electric gates or the distance between the street and the locations of the trash bin.
The RecycLA program only allows the use of the city-designated trash company, so residents at Villa Espana say they're unable to find an alternative waste hauler that might charge less.
The HOA received notice of the increases earlier this year after Waste Management determined that the complex should incur more distance fees, according to collection quotes sent by the company, meaning the distance between the street and the location where each bin has to be picked-up.
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The complex doesn't have room for centralized dumpsters, and large trash trucks cannot access the driveways inside, so each resident puts individual bins outside of their garages Thursday mornings for pickup.
"Our fees would be going up from approximately $5,300 a month to $37,000 a month," said Ross, explaining about $24,000 of the new charges are made up of those distance fees.
Service quotes sent to the HOA and shared with the I-Team showed the new charges for one side of the complex on Newcastle Avenue would be $22,726 each month, and the other side on Lindley Avenue would be $15,081.08 each month, totaling $37,807.08.
Waste Management agreed to postpone the increase for three months, meaning the new fees would take effect September 1 unless the company reduced the amount or the city intervened, she said.
In email statements to the I-Team, Waste Management initially denied it quoted an amount topping $30,000 and said it had proposed an alternative service agreement for much less money.
"We have held several constructive meetings with the property owners of the complex about their service options and charges consistent with the recycLA program," Waste Management's media office said.
"In May 2024, [we] found a solution for the customer that involves no access or distance fees, while remaining in full compliance with the RecycLA program," the company said.
Villa Espana residents explained that proposal, which would cost $6,457.84 each month, would no longer include trash and recycling collection inside the complex, meaning residents would have to pull their bins, more than 100 of them, outside the complex gates and on to the surrounding streets, which are jammed daily with parked cars.
Ross said that wasn't realistic, and in order to continue with the door-to-door collection the residents have received since 2019, they would have to pay the new distance fees, which she said few of the residents could afford.
"I mean, we complain about gas or something going up a few pennies, what about something like this? This is terrible, and we have no choice," she said.
A spokesperson for City Councilwoman Nithya Raman said her office offered to assist with negotiating a reduced bill in May and said her office remained willing to intervene if the Villa Espana residents couldn't resolve the situation with Waste Management directly.
LA Sanitation, which manages the RecycLA program, did not respond to repeated requests for information on the distance fee assessment or its management of the trash collection contractors, including Waste Management.
RecycLA was started around 2018 in order to require multi-unit residential buildings to begin sorting trash into separate solid waste and recycling bins, rather than allowing residents to toss all waste into one large dumpster. State laws will also require separate green waste bins.
