As those of us know who abut the Midtown hotel, there were some issues with trash collection. Many of us were ticketed for putting our trash on the Midtown's side of the alley. I've only lived here for 6 months, and I was under the impression that was the correct thing to do. Apparently it wasn't, as I received a ticket! I started putting my trash on my side of the street, but did notice others were getting tickets.
Does anyone have any information as to how this situation was resolved? I would like to hear about it...
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The abutters to your alley along Huntington have strongly objected to the ISD, Public Works and the Mayor’s Office that people are illegally dumping trash on their property. One of these abutters did have an employee that regularly cleaned the alley as a courtesy, but this practice stopped following his death. The companies do not feel it is their obligation to clean the alley of trash and object to having trash dumped on their property.
This practice along Alley 404 is very long standing, decades apparently. How this started, no one seems to know. But, apparently, it was tolerated by the abutters and ignored by the City.
The law did not change. Due to the complaints, the city has stepped up enforcement of existing regulations. You can review these at http://www.cityofboston.gov/publicworks/pdfs/TrashRecGuid.pdf
The SBNA did not have any role in pushing the city to enforce such laws. This was undertaken by the abutters.
The SBNA did receive indication in late summer that the Huntington abutters were fed up with the trash situation. As the trash situation is a common issue amongst residents, we selected this as the topic for the first meeting this fall. On September 19th, we did have a very good meeting with a panel made up of representatives from the Mayor’s Office, ISD and Recycling. A lot of common issues were discussed and the representatives reviewed the existing regulations regarding trash disposal. There was nothing specifically discussed about Alley 404, though it was listed on the agenda as a possible topic due to the complaints. Though the abutters were invited, they did not attend. There was no indication outside the norm was forthcoming.
In reviewing this matter further following a rash of similar citations, we learned that the abutters have been adamantly pushing the City to enforce existing regulations. It was the abutters’ belief that the City was to remind residents of existing rules and their intent to enforce them. While most of us would assume this would be done by a flyer or other type of communication, apparently ticketing was the format the City selected.
In fairness to the abutters, they have been very good neighbors for a long time and apparently not only tolerated this practice but graciously provided clean up service. Certainly, your alley was very lucky in that regards. They no longer desire to provide this service and feel their hospitality has been taken advantage of. Residents along every alley in the city put their trash behind their residences without incident, so I am not sure of the complication in alley 404.
In fairness to residents, we recognize that for whatever reason this has been a long-standing practice along alley 404. While the City need not notify people that they intend to enforce existing regulations, communication certainly could have been better. Like the start up of street sweeping in the Spring, friendly reminders go along way in increasing participation and cutting down on towing.
At the same time, every alley has a trash problem with torn bags as you noted. This was also discussed at length at the meeting on the 19th. The City recognizes the cause of the problem. However, it is very reluctant to further address the problem due to the inevitable uproar that would accompany the City trampling on the rights of the homeless. Apparently, this was attempted previously and was met with a horrendous backlash.
The SBNA has been trying to work around this situation by providing suggestions to counter act the problem through the use of clear plastic bags, properly disposing of trash (time, location), recycling, etc. We realize that this does not directly solve the source of the problem and it is just that, a work around. I am sure you can understand the limited time and resources of our very small organization such as ours.
With all this said, this is what the SBNA is doing to try to assist neighbors with this situation:
We have asked the abutters, Mayor’s Office and ISD to scale back the enforcement pending better communication to neighbors of their intent to enforce existing regulations.
We are working diligently to put together an informative flyer/newsletter outlining regulations and the City’s intent to enforce them. We would welcome any assistance in getting this done as there are only five of us on the Board and we all are very busy people like yourselves. We are hoping that this will become an annual “welcome to the neighborhood” piece during the annual move-in period at the beginning of September.
We are setting up a meeting with City representatives to address the return of trash receptacles in the neighborhood. There are a lot of options here and too much for me to get into now. But, essentially, the SBNA is looking to finance the installation of several big-belly trash cans in the area that would be tended by the City. To finance this very expensive purchase, we will be seeking support of businesses in the area and hosting some fund-raising events such as the Red Sox Ticket raffle we did this summer. A very time consuming, and not so fast, process.
We have updated the bulletin board outside the 7-11 alerting neighbors of the situation.
I think that sums it up. We all recognize that City living brings with it some challenges, one of which is the trash situation. While we recognize the right of the abutters to not want trash disposed of illegally on their property and the City to enforce such existing regulations, we do believe it was not handled well. We thought we were working with the various parties to address the matter.
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