Garbage Trucks Stinking Up The East Side Must Be Relocated: Pol

EAST VILLAGE, NY — They want the city to take out the trash.

Locals and elected officials are raising a stink over the city parking 21 garbage trucks on three residential East Side streets.

The city's Department of Sanitation relocated the trucks after the agency's lease ran out at a 606 W. 30th St. garage and the city began parking its vehicles on E. 10th Street, Mt. Carmel Place and York Avenue.

Livid residents and small business owners who are forced to endure the foul fleet have filed a volley of complaints with their local community boards and elected officials, and one councilwoman is demanding the city take swift action to find a new home for the trucks.

"[The Department of Sanitation] must immediately move their vehicles to locations that do not place an undue burden on our vulnerable constituents and mom-and-pop stores and should engage in a meaningful dialogue with these communities," wrote Councilwoman Carlina Rivera in a recent letter to the Department of Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia.

The city was unable to renew its lease at the W. 30th Street depot, which housed trucks serving Community Board 6, and has since begun storing the vehicles in Rivera's District 2 on E. 10th Street between First and Second avenues and Mt. Carmel Place at E. 26th Street, and in neighboring Councilman Ben Kallos's District 5 on York Avenue between E. 59th and E. 60th streets.

Kallos's office has yet to hear complaints on the trucks, but Community Board 3 and Rivera's offices have received a flurry of calls from locals griping about the smelly garbage, noise from the traffic, negative impacts on small businesses and accessibility issues when the trucks clog the streets.

"The stench of rotting garbage is overpowering — especially when there's a half dozen of them bunched together," said Melissa Arroyo, 39, who lives in an E. 10th Street apartment overlooking the impromptu parking lot. "I just don't understand the thought process behind dumping these trucks on a busy, residential street. It's inconceivable."

The complaints are unending, said the district manager of Community Board 3.

"We have been inundated with calls about this. I have never had so many complaints on an issue in the 14 years I have been district manager," said Susan Stetzer. "I've heard businesses are suffering, I mean, who’s going to go eating and drinking surrounded by garbage trucks?"

A co-owner of the E. 10th Street bar restaurant Pinks was floored by the city's move, and says business has already plummeted with the row of trucks stationed in front of the bar.

"It's ridiculous — people are eating and then there's a wall of garbage trucks," said Avi Burns, who employs 20 workers at the four-year-old eatery and catering service. "Financially, it's been a significant impact, it's not something that's sustainable. It'll be catastrophic for us if this goes on for months."

The city has long known it would need a new space to store the trucks but has failed to come up with a better solution and calls the makeshift garage a "last resort." The change is temporary until a new facility is found for the fleet, said a spokeswoman for the Department of Sanitation.

"Simply put, we are without a home," said Belinda Mager. "We've been working for years to find garage space, which is the only solution. This is the option of last resort, and what's needed to be able to provide essential services to the district."

The sites were selected because they are near "section stations, where workers get orders and which have small offices with toilet facilities, lockers and communications equipment," according to Mager.

The Department of Sanitation insisted that Commissioner Garcia has been in talks with local elected officials about the changes since January and that the city gave notice to Rivera, Kallos, Councilman Keith Powers, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Community Board's 3, 6 and 8.

But Stetzer says the city initially told Community Board 3 that the trucks would be parked near Pier 36 at South and Montgommery streets near another sanitation depot.

The misinformation has not helped the situation and the community needs more clarity on why the trucks are parked on their doorsteps, she said.

“We need to know more about why they settled on this," said Stetzer. "This community deserves more information.”

Photos courtesy of Caroline Spivack/Patch