Street cleaning fees to be increased
21.11.2023 – The fee statutes, including the list of streets, have now been revised in Offenbach and are to be valid from January 1, 2024, following a resolution by the city parliament and publication. The municipal council approved this at its most recent meeting.
To prevent passers-by from having to slalom around garbage and weeds on the sidewalks, the City of Offenbach's street cleaning statutes regulate how often which streets have to be cleaned and who is responsible for this. The associated fee statutes stipulate how much is to be paid for municipal cleaning by the Stadtservice of Stadtwerke. Fees must always cover costs, and all local authorities are legally obliged to recalculate them regularly.
Inflation and higher wage costs have an impact on fees
"Above all, the increase in inflation, which also includes the increased wages for the street sweepers at Stadtwerke, is the reason for an increase in fees of around 18.5 percent," says Martin Wilhelm, City Treasurer and the department head responsible for Stadtservice at Stadtwerke. "Added to this are the costs of switching to quieter sweepers, increased taxation on the rising sweeping volumes and the increased costs of maintaining the vehicle fleet, all of which have to be covered by the fees."
Christian Loose, deputy head of ESO Eigenbetrieb der Stadt Offenbach, Kommunale Dienstleistungen, explains the impact of the increase: "For a house with a ten-metre frontage on a sidewalk or street to be cleaned by Stadtservice and a weekly cleaning cycle, this means an increase from the previous 75.60 euros to 88.88 euros per year from January 2024. That is 13.28 euros per year. A property, possibly with a business on the first floor and apartments on the floors above, in front of which 36 front meters are swept seven times a week, will have to pay 2,268 euros instead of the previous 1,922 euros."
Residential cleaning in streets with low frequency of use
Citizens who live in streets where residents' cleaning applies are not affected by the increase. This is particularly the case where the streets and sidewalks are less frequented and there are no special facilities such as daycare centers, schools or bus stops.
If, on the other hand, conditions have changed in such a way that the property owners cannot be expected to clean the streets themselves - for example due to the construction of a new school or a new supermarket - and can be done better and more efficiently with a sweeper, Stadtservice takes over and charges a fee. Increased public traffic can also lead to a street or section being classified in a higher cleaning class and swept six times a week instead of the previous four. Overall, however, there have only been changes to the new bylaws in three streets.
Classification of cleaning classes according to points system
In Offenbach, streets are divided into cleaning classes according to a points system that is continuously reviewed by the quality assurance department of the municipal utilities. The results of the street section assessments are incorporated into each new version of the bylaws. The criteria include, for example, the density and type of development in a street, the number of deciduous trees and whether the street is particularly frequented by passers-by or vehicles.