(The Center Square) — Last year, in December, an ordinance was passed to increase sanitation rates for 2025. Now, multi-family residential property owners are seeing a big spike in their monthly and annual expenses.
Bossier complex owners took to the podium in Tuesday’s city council meeting, representing nearly 3,600 units throughout the city.
“Prior to the new public works fee, our five properties paid $15,000 in sanitation fees,” said Shannon Hollier, director of operations at Fairfield Property Management. “Now our properties will pay $181,000 annually for the public works fee. That is a 15,600% increase in our water bills.”
Hollier oversees five complexes throughout Bossier City, approximately 1,257 units.
According to the previously passed ordinance, service charges were not enough to cover the costs of various sanitation services. There was a $12 increase for each establishment not receiving solid waste service, which included each individual apartment unit.
Now, complex owners are seeing the results of this increase.
“When we received our water bills in February, we were absolutely shocked to see that our sanitation rate went from $48 per month to $6,744 per month for all four of our properties,” said Ty Alley with Landmark Realty.
Many believe that the council was ill-informed about how significant the increase was and what effects it would have on landlords and tenants. Dusty Williams, a Bossier complex owner, said that 25% of his properties are Section 8 voucher families, and the increase cannot be added to these families because the voucher is maxed out.
Williams has met with several city council members on the issue. The new sanitation rate increased Williams’s expenses to $3,648 per month, $43,776 per year for the 304 residential properties he represents.
The city council heard each presentation and agreed to hold a meeting to discuss the matter further.
“None of us as apartment owners are out for a free ride. We are simply asking that we pay the equitable share,” said Linc Coleman of U.L. Coleman Companies.
