LOS ANGELES : Doubling of Fees for Trash Collection OKd

The City Council this week gave final approval to the doubling of trash collection fees, over the objection of homeowners who said the increase will eventually result in their having to pay the entire cost of the city’s trash collection system.

The increase, part of a midyear budget-balancing package, will increase fees for apartment dwellers from $24 to $48 a year and for homeowners from $36 to $72 a year. The Department of Water and Power bills for the service.

Business representatives had insisted on increases in the fees to homeowners, to counterbalance an increase in business license taxes that was approved earlier by the council. But representatives of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., an alliance of homeowner groups, said they feared that homeowners could eventually have to pay more than $250 a year to subsidize the entire cost of trash pickup.