Landfill fees for RVs discussed by county
During the last several meetings of the board of county commissioners, the issue of how to best assign landfill fees for RVs and mobile homes was raised. Caribou County's Assessor was on hand to answer any relevant questions. At the heart of the discussion was whether it made more sense to assign those fees to the owners of the land on which the mobile home or RV parks were located, or to the residences themselves.
In the case of mobile homes, the situation was noted as being fairly similar to apartment rental in the sense that the residences are not frequently moved, but are usually located on land leased from the park or court owner. A landfill fee, which was recently increased to $180, is assigned to the property owner, who then generally passes it on to the resident directly, though they can negotiate that as they see fit. The issue is that if the fees are assessed to the lots themselves—that is, potential residences that may not all be full—the owner is paying a fee for waste that does not exist. According to Assessor Cook, it would be possible to assign the fees to the individual residences, but that it would be a cumbersome process.
RVs, on the other hand, are more likely to be temporarily in their locations, and present a different set of concerns. The same problem with charging fees for unoccupied lots would exist, but it would be much more difficult and regulatory to create a per-RV fee into the assessment system, especially because the fees would likely need to be pro-rated.
Some further considerations regarding how the lots are determined and inventoried among the mobile home and RV parks were raised. Cedar Bay, for instance, has a leasing arrangement that may affect how any fees from the landfill could be assigned.
Commissioner Somsen noted that “We’ve approved a few RV parks and nothing’s happening with them. There are some places that have located more RVs than were originally put in for.”
Grace Mayor Barthlome asked what the owners need to do about the empty lots where there is no garbage being hauled out. “So they can come in and ask for the money back from the empty lots?” She asked, noting that the county would be charging people a fee for a service they aren’t using.
Treasurer Angie Mendenhall agreed, that “it’s like if you were charging a fee for an empty lot.” She explained that an inventory of the lots would have to be performed on a set basis and the fee re-adjusted to the property owner based on occupancy in order to avoid that.
Another solution would be to charge each lot as a parcel, which would create a logistical and workload problem.
Through the course of the discussion, it was ultimately determined to leave the situation as it is, where property owners would be assessed a fee regardless of lot occupancy, but could then come before the board to petition for the removal of fees on empty lots.
Aaron Cook stated that he would look into what he could find about the number of RV and mobile homes in the county, and what the fees have been historically. The exact number of parks and courts throughout the county was not immediately known.
The commissioners said that they would take the issue to the next Four County meeting and see what the policies were in other counties related to landfill fees for mobile homes and RVs.
Any changes to the ordinance regarding landfill fees would be subject to a required public hearing on the issue.
