The Rich County Commission debated how to implement a recent amendment to the county’s sanitation ordinance that changed when new homes begin receiving sanitation service. Staff and commissioners said the amendment — intended to avoid billing homes that are complete but unsold — left ambiguity over whether billing should begin on issuance of a certificate of occupancy or when a household actually receives a garbage can or dumpster service.

Sanitation staff described problems in practice: many new homeowners do not call to set up accounts, some subdivisions use shared dumpsters rather than individual cans, and some developers (named in the discussion as Scion Homes) left multiple completed but unoccupied houses in inventory. Commissioners and staff discussed several operational options: trigger billing on the certificate of occupancy, trigger billing when a can is issued, leave the ordinance language as written and send a form letter after occupancy advising owners that billing will start unless they contact the county, or allow temporary pauses in billing (for example, a six-month pause) for unoccupied homes that must be requested by the owner.

The commission agreed to leave the ordinance unchanged for now and to implement a form-letter notification process tied to the certificate of occupancy: if the home is not occupied, owners are to contact the county to confirm a pause; otherwise billing will start automatically. Staff were asked to track how many accounts are set up without owner contact and to test other options, such as adding a sanitation setup requirement to the occupancy process or improving coordination with title companies.

No formal ordinance amendment was adopted at the meeting. Commissioners asked staff to report back in a few months with data on how the letter/occupancy-trigger approach is working and to consider further modifications if the approach proves inadequate.