New Sevier County Solid Waste Plan

[Ken Boone]

For those of you operating in Sevier County, a few days ago, the Sevier County Board of Commissioners passed a new updated solid waste plan.  

First of all the problem as I understand it - some convenience centers are filling up too fast and are closing early presumably due to short term rental trash increase.  This leaves residences of the county having to travel to a different convenient center to drop off their trash.

The new plan is creating a "central" facility where all cleaners must go to take the STR trash. All of the convenience centers will now be enforced as residential only. In addition, a new fee will be charged to the cleaners depending on the size of the load.

This is coming in to play shortly after Sevier County made a ruling that overnight rentals will now be changed to commercial properties thereby levying a 60% tax increase on many short term rentals.  It seems like a simple solution to me.  Use some of that 60% tax increase they received and pay for more frequent truck runs to pick up full dumpsters at convenience centers that are filling up too fast.  Done!

Instead of allowing cleaners to drop off trash at the closest convenient center and then getting back to work quickly, many will have to drive across town and then converge at one location with all other cleaners creating increased traffic problems in an already congested area.  The traffic backup alone may force cleaners to have to drop the number of cabins they support.  Most STRs in this market are turns and the cleaners already have a short window to get cabins turned over for the next guest.   They don't really have the option of just collecting trash and keeping it on their trailers for several days and cutting down on runs due to the bears in the area.

This plan seemed to not take into consideration the overnight rental market and it seems they did not consult with anyone in the overnight rental industry before creating this plan.  There is a petition asking the mayor and the board of commissioners to reconsider this plan and to create a group consisting of all stakeholders to provide consultation to come up with a solution that works best for everyone.  I don't know if I can post a link or not to the petition, but if a moderator allows it I will.

[Leora Merrell]

Yes. The cleaners are in a full blown panic. It’s very frustrating. Yet, the county keeps approving more and more cabins to be built. I was just talking to her about how one site we’ve been using during a remodel seems to hardly be used. It’s been great.
Then I remembered there’s 12 1 bedroom cabins almost done being built and a 64 4 bedroom cabin resort expected to be finished within the year within less than a mile of this site. So it will no longer be a slow dump site. Why approve alllll this building and make zero effort to accommodate what comes with it?

I agree, the property tax increase should be used for a solution to this. The way they’re going about it is so backwards and just plain dumb.