The 32nd Session of the City Council has finished

Withdrawing the fee for dog owners, inflation-related indexation of real estate tax rates and waste collection fees, new plans regarding landscape planning, as well as programmes of cooperation with NGOs and of environmental protection – these are only some of the resolutions that the councillors discussed during yesterday’s session of the City Council.

No more dog fee

Good news for dog owners – during yesterday’s session the fee for owning a dog was abolished. Currently, the fee amounts to PLN 50 per year, but due to the large number of owners exempted from the fee, such as residents over 65 years of age or owners of sterilised or neutered dogs and owners of dogs adopted from a shelter, the budget receipts were small and a large part of them was consumed by collector’s pay. Hence the decision to exempt dog owners from the fee.

New real estate tax rates

The councillors have decided to apply indexation to the real estate tax rates to take into account the inflation rate (announced by Statistics Poland in the middle of the year, that is 3,6%). Thereupon, the owner of a flat of 50 square metres will pay PLN 2.60 more per year and the owner of a house with an area of 150 square metres – PLN 16 more per year. People who own a garage will pay PLN 9.30 more in tax than before. On the other hand, entrepreneurs owning premises of 100 square metres have to reckon with the increase of PLN 92 per year. The increase in the real estate tax rates will result in an increase of income for the City of about PLN 6,7 million.

Waste changes

During today’s session of the City Council a set of so-called waste resolutions was passed, containing, among others,  regulations on waste collection fees up to the level of inflation. The rates were set at PLN 9.30 per 1 cubic metre of consumed water (for multi-family housing) and PLN 105 per month for a household (single-family housing) and doubled if the property owner does not fulfil the obligation of waste segregation. In accordance with the amendment to the Act on maintaining order and cleanliness in municipalities, rates per container for uninhabited properties were also changed so that they correspond to market prices.

Subsequent resolutions introduced changes in the scope of services provided as part of the system. Due to the obligation of equipping the property in brown containers and collection of bio-waste at the source, the provision of the same service within the container system was discontinued. The provisions regarding the frequency of bulky waste collection were also modified for single-family housing to twice a year and for multi-family housing to 12 times a year. Naturally, residents can still bring bulky waste to ecoports without any limitations. However, the rules of accepting construction and demolition waste from households in ecoports were made specific  – twice a year, up to 200 kg each.

The signing of inter-municipal agreements with Police and Stargard was also approved. As a result, bio-waste from Szczecin will be sent to systems located there, while waste from those municipalities will be incinerated in Szczecin’s Ecogenerator. This solution provides real savings in relation to rates proposed in the tender for collection and management of waste by private entities, amounting to around PLN 2 million.

All the proposed solutions are aimed at optimising the system’s functioning and its balancing, and are necessary due to, among others, constantly increasing costs and amounts of collected waste.

Two new plans

The city councillors have also approved two local spatial development plans. The plans show the acceptable ways of land development for the following areas: the  Żydowce – housing estate and Gumieńce – 3 Krakowska Street.

Cooperation with NGOs and ecology

As every year, the Civil Dialogue Department presented the councillors with the “Programme of cooperation of the City of Szczecin with NGOs and other entities conducting public benefit activities for 2022”, from which we can learn, among others, everything about the forms, subject matters and methods of cooperation with NGOs in the next year. During the session, the Environmental Protection Programme of the City of Szczecin for 2021-2024 with an outlook for 2025-2028 was also adopted.

Detailed information on individual resolutions and voting results can be found here.