By Lizzie Stone, city council reporter
City trash collection will change its regular Friday route to Wednesday, and residents will use a reservation system to request pick-up of bulk items and yard debris instead of through a regular bulk trash collection day. Those changes will begin in January.
Bulk and yard debris will move to an online reservation, where residents can request it to be picked up the same day as their regular trash pick-up. People will need to request that bulk or yard-waste collection by noon the day before.
Regular Friday collection for residents in the southeast of the city will move to Wednesday. Trash crews will work four longer days each week, including nine hours Monday to Thursday and will work a short day Friday.
Cardboard pickup will remain unchanged. It is currently being offered through a similar online reservation system.
Reservations will allow the city to pick up bulk and yard trash separately, which Director of Public Works Tom Hartman told the city council will save the city money. Trash crews can collect bulk and debris separately, allowing them to compress yard debris and dump it for cheaper. Additionally, the department will save money and time with direct pickups instead of driving routes looking for bulk and debris.
Hartman said the reservation system will minimize the impact of holidays and weather because people can easily reschedule pickups. He said it will also generally expand access, because people can get a pickup as much as every week instead of waiting two weeks for the regular bulk/yard debris pick-up.
Council member Laura Dent said she believed the environmental impacts of the efficient route and dumping changes would be positive.
Hartman said the department anticipates a few transitional months of actively informing the public about services before it takes effect in January. They will begin outreach this fall with open houses and advertisements.
Council will not vote on Link Apartment complex in September
Developers of the proposed Link Apartments complex are still working on a facilitation plan for community feedback before city council votes on rezoning.
At the Aug. 12 city council meeting, which hosted a public hearing for the project, city council members requested the developers gather more public input. The proposed apartment site, which sits between Liberty and Main streets near City Hall, would need to be rezoned to higher density before the project could move forward.
Several local facilitators volunteered to help the developers create a community feedback plan. City manager Ande Banks said he expects council will hear an update on the plan at their next meeting.
Banks said the city was involved in setting up the first meeting between developers and facilitators but have not continued to be involved in the process. He said they are committed to staying neutral and leaving it up to the developers to gather feedback.
Four residents spoke about the apartment during public comment, sharing their concerns. They said they were concerned about losing the Lindsey Funeral Home building and highlighted the public opposition to the project gathered in a local petition. Those speakers also mentioned possible tax exemptions for the project which would negate economic benefits for the city and aesthetic concerns about the building itself.
Banks said that if there are a lot of changes after an input process, the proposal might even need to go back to the planning commission. City council members will decide if the community feedback process met their expectations.
- The city council approved its updated vision and action plan, which lays out council priorities and guides decision making for the city in the future. They selected “A City for All” as the overall theme for their vision. A vision statement expands the idea, explaining that Harrisonburg’s “inclusiveness is our strength.” Priorities and actions are laid out in the plan, which will guide the actions of city staff.
Thanks for reading The Citizen, which won the Virginia Press Association’s 2022 News Sweepstakes award as the top online news site in Virginia. We’re independent. We’re local. We pay our contributors, and the money you give goes directly to the reporting. No overhead. No printing costs. Just facts, stories and context. We value your support.
