Councilperson proposes Quality of Life Ticketing legislation to clean up Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — The City of Pittsburgh is considering a new way of enforcing garbage violations.

“Our city is dirty and my attempt here is one tool our anti-litter inspectors can use to try to clean up the city,” said Councilperson Bob Charland

Charland introduced a so-called Quality of Life ticketing plan before City Council on Tuesday.

“Quality of Life ticketing is not something new to Pennsylvania. Over 40 municipalities already use quality-of-life ticketing. Some cities, like Erie, use it to enforce their entire building code,” Charland said.

The new program would center around four issues that Charland says are already city code violations: accumulation of garbage on a property, improper storage of trash cans, early set out or late removal of cans, and contamination of recyclables.

Charland says current enforcement of these issues is inefficient and ineffective.

He’s trying to clean that up.

“Anti-litter inspectors have to see a violation in front of your property three times before they can actually take you to court and actually do something about it. This program would become parking tickets for trash violations,” Charland said.

Violators would be ticketed on the spot with a $35 fine.

Fines would increase with each violation.

There will be exceptions for the elderly and people with disabilities.

For rental properties, if landlords have signed documentation that tenants have been instructed on trash protocols, the tickets will go to the tenants, not the landlord.

“Ideally, we would write zero violations and we would have everyone in voluntary compliance because everyone cleans up their own yards. The plan here is not to create an additional revenue stream by any means,” Charland said.

According to Charland, Council will discuss his proposal next Wednesday but will wait to vote until August.

Before then, he hopes to gather more input on the plan from the community.

His goal is to phase in the program by the end of this year.

The District 3 Council Office welcomes feedback and photos of trash here.

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