City policy has townhomers taking trash

From this weekend's news, another reason not to live in those townhomes that are going up all over the Inner Loop: If you do, the city might not pick up your trash. That's the issue at the Calumet Street Lofts in the Third Ward, one of those Urban Lofts developments that shoehorns a bunch of metal townhomes into a tiny area by putting some on the inside of the property, accessible by narrow driveways. And that's why the city isn't picking up the garbage at Calumet Street Lofts: According to city solid waste officials, Houston's garbage ordinance prohibits crews from picking up trash from residences that aren't on public streets, so the interior units don't qualify for garbage service.

The Chronicle interviewed Mark Kressenberg, who lives in the development and said the people in the interior townhomes would gladly wheel their garbage cans to the public curb for pickup. But city solid waste director Thomas "Buck" Buchanan said that won't work: "The code of ordinances prohibits collection from residential units that are not on public streets," he told the Chron. "Ethically, I cannot knowingly ignore that restriction." What's odd is that some other developments that are similar to Calumet Street do get trash service from the city, apparently because they were grandfathered in from a previous private collection deal tthat expired in 2000.

The disparity has left residents wondering what to do with their trash — and how the city is going to lure more people into poorly built, badly designed, densely packed townhomes. Mayor Bill White has launched a trash task force to look at whether the city should change its garbage policy, and in the meantime, Calumet Street resident Sarah Costello is threatening the worst kind of retaliation: "We're having another baby soon," she said. "Those diapers are going to pile up." Eww.