San Diego cuts trash pickup price after residents balk. Here’s what it could now cost.

San Diego officials are reducing by about 10% a proposed new trash fee for single-family homes that the City Council is scheduled to debate on Monday.

The revised proposal announced Wednesday suggests a monthly rate of $47.59 for full-service customers — more than $5 less than the initial proposal of $53 per month that the city announced in February.

The fee would still rise in coming years when the city adds new services like bulky trash pickup. But instead of rising to $65 in July 2027, the fee would rise to $59.42 at that time.

Customers willing to use smaller trash bins — 35 gallons, instead of the normal 95 gallons — would pay $36.72 per month instead of the previously proposed $42. That would rise to $45.66 in July 2027 instead of the previously planned $52.

The proposal to charge less comes after two months of backlash from residents of single-family homes, who have enjoyed no-fee trash pickup for decades because of a 1919 law called the People’s Ordinance.

Residents are complaining the proposed rates are nearly twice what the city estimated in 2022 and that city officials want to add too many services. Some say the city should consider outsourcing trash pickup.

The lower proposed fees won’t impact the budget savings San Diego will reap from being able to start charging for trash pickup.

City officials said this week that ending fully subsidized trash pickup at single-family homes will save the general fund between $80 million and $90 million a year, helping shrink a $258 million deficit estimated for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Even at the revised rates, San Diego would still have higher monthly trash fees than any city in Southern California except for Long Beach. But the differences would be smaller than under the earlier proposal.

San Diego’s rates would be higher than those in Riverside at $37.32, Los Angeles at $41.32 and Pasadena at $46.61. Long Beach now charges $42.66 but recently approved a rate hike to $50 in May and $68.73 in August 2026.

Most other cities in Southern California contract out trash service to private haulers like EDCO or Waste Management.

The median monthly fee in 12 local cities surveyed by San Diego is $32, which includes monthly fees of $28 in El Cajon, $23 to $35 in Chula Vista, $28 to $31 in Carlsbad and $29 to $33 in Oceanside.

San Diego officials contend such comparisons can be misleading, stressing that trash collection is more complicated in San Diego because it’s a sprawling city that extends from San Ysidro near the U.S.-Mexico border all the way north to Rancho Bernardo.

Residents can still weigh in on — and possibly prevent — San Diego’s proposed new trash fees even if the council approves them Monday.

City officials say they will mail out, during the week beginning April 21, protest cards to each of the estimated 233,000 households that would pay the new fee.

If a majority of households — roughly 117,000 — submit a protest card before or during a public hearing scheduled for June 9, the new fees can’t be imposed under state law.

Big changes are coming to San Diego trash pickup because city voters in 2022 approved Measure B, which amended the People’s Ordinance to allow the city to start charging for trash pickup.

Prior to Measure B, the city had no option but to provide no-fee trash pickup at single-family homes and apartment and condominium complexes with four units or fewer if they have access to a public street.

Larger apartment and condo buildings have been forced to contract with private haulers for trash pickup — and that isn’t changing.

City officials say the ability to charge customers allows the city to consider providing higher-quality trash and recycling services after years of cutting corners and trying to do things as cheaply as possible.

The proposed fees are based on a 243-page consultant’s study that recommends San Diego add a long list of new services.

Those services include weekly pickup of all recycling, free replacement of damaged bins, free pickup twice a year of bulky items like couches and frequent opportunities for free disposal of oil, batteries, TVs and other electronics.

Other factors in the proposed monthly rates include plans to replace about 500,000 black and blue bins now in use and a proposal that the city hire roughly 130 new workers to boost efficiency and handle new services.

The consultant also recommends the city replace many of its older trash vehicles, add a supplemental crew to handle missed pickups and charge enough for its trash fund to accumulate a 25% operating reserve.

Other costs included in the proposed rates are projected inflation, the costs of billing, a consultant’s study and a proposal to move container operations to a new location away from Miramar Place.

To reduce the proposed fees, the city is not eliminating or scaling back any of the proposed new services, Jeremy Bauer, assistant director of the city’s Environmental Services Department, said this week.

Bauer stressed that the monthly rates proposed in February were preliminary and that city officials said they could end up either $3 higher or lower. The revised rates are all between $5 and $6 lower than the initial rates.

One factor in the lower rates is a decision not to charge ratepayers for community cleanup events, where teams of city workers focus on clearing debris and trash from a particular neighborhood, Bauer said. The city will still host those events but will continue to subsidize them instead of charging.

Another factor is $1.9 million in reserves the city has in its container replacement fund. That money will be used to help lower some startup costs, and the savings are baked into the revised rates, Bauer said.

In addition, officials did a line-by-line review of every cost driver to make sure there was no overlap or duplication. Bauer said that also yielded some savings.

Bauer said the two new services generating the most backlash have been adding bulky trash pickup and shifting from every-other-week pickup of blue recycling bins to every-week pickup.

Bauer said city officials are choosing to keep the plan for weekly pickup of blue recycling bins based on concerns that the end of free service will prompt some households with two blue bins to go down to one to save money.

Bauer said that could mean more items eligible for recycling would go in black trash bins, potentially shortening the life of the Miramar Landfill.

“We consider weekly recycling an operational necessity,” Bauer said. “We don’t want to see a backslide in recycling volumes.”

City officials are more open-minded about bulky trash pickup. While not part of the revised rates, they will provide the council with scenarios where the city either limits or eliminates that proposed new service.

If the service is limited to one item per year for each household, monthly bills would drop by nearly $4. If the city nixes plans to add the service completely, monthly bills would drop by about $6.

Bauer said much of the savings comes from the city being able to reduce from about 130 to about 75 the number of new employees needed if no bulky trash program is added.

The council on Monday could also eliminate some of the other proposed services. Or they could lower the rates in other ways, such as calling for a smaller reserve fund than 25%.

The council also must decide how a subsidy program for low-income residents would work. City officials have set aside $3 million for such a program but have left the details up to the council.

The money could provide a full subsidy for about 3,500 customers, a 50% subsidy for about 7,000 customers or a 15% subsidy for about 23,000 customers.

City officials said eligibility will likely be based on enrollment in state or federal financial assistance programs, salary documentation or the inability to pay property taxes.

At a public forum Monday night in the Midway District, residents voiced unhappiness with the city’s proposal for many reasons.

Mick Gammon, a former city employee living in Point Loma, said San Diego should outsource trash pickup to the private sector.

“I oppose the city providing the service,” he said. “They can’t compete with the private sector. It doesn’t pencil out.”

San Diego officials say they didn’t consider outsourcing trash services, partly because the ballot measure that allows the city to start charging for trash pickup says “City forces shall collect and transport residential solid waste for transfer, transport, recycling or disposal.”

Some people have raised concerns that that may conflict with section 117 of the city charter. That section says the mayor and City Council can outsource any city service except public safety if “city services can be provided more economically and efficiently by an independent contractor than by persons employed in the Classified Service while maintaining service quality and protecting the public interest.”

City Attorney Heather Ferbert said last month there is no conflict.

“Charter section 117(c) gives the City a choice between engaging in managed competition or using City forces,” she said. “In the case of Measure B, that choice was given to the voters. The clear language of the ballot measure specified that City forces would continue to provide trash collection for eligible residences. Measure B does not conflict with the City Charter.”

Gammon is also against the city adding bulky trash pickup, contending that nonprofit agencies can pick up unwanted couches.

On Monday night, Pippi Layritz of Serra Mesa said she wants the city to charge people based on the weight of their trash.

“I have very, very little trash — I compost almost everything,” she said. “Why do I need to pay for trash if I don’t have any?”

Lynn Borkenhagen of Point Loma said she’s frustrated that the prices are so much higher than what the city’s independent budget analyst estimated in 2022, before voters approved charging for pickup. The IBA estimated then that trash fees would be $23 to $29 a month if San Diego started charging.

“I’m taken aback that it’s now twice as much as we voted for,” she said.

Councilmembers Joe LaCava and Sean Elo-Rivera, who spearheaded efforts to amend the people’s ordinance, have defended the new proposed fees.

“I hear folks when they say ‘I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t want this,’ but there’s a lot of people who did,” Elo-Rivera said after the proposed rates were announced in February. “This is a big city — there’s 1.4 million people who live here — we’re rarely going to agree on every component of everything.”

Monday’s council meeting is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. at City Hall, 202 C St. Additional hearings to finalize the rates are scheduled for June 9 and June 24.