This site prompted a reader’s question on Sunday. I looked at it Monday.
On an empty lot southeast of the Queen and Geary intersection in Albany, between Mega Storage and the Periwinkle Creek Apartments, somebody seems to have started an improvised dump.
A reader wondered about it and wrote: “Did the City of Albany approve this? Even if this is connected to new construction in the area, other people are dumping mattresses etc. there also. Real eyesore.”
No, the city didn’t approve that dump. What the city did approve, early in 2023, was a series of land use actions regarding the 4.8-acre tract that included the fomer Mega Foods store, which has since been converted to Mega Storage, at 2000 Queen Ave. S.E.
The parcel was divided, with the Mega building and parking lot taking up the northern section on Queen. On the southern section, which includes the spot where trash has piled up, the city approved a site plan calling for two three-story apartment buildings.
No apartments have yet been built there, obviously. But on behalf of the owners, a Salem architect applied for building permits in September 2024. The permits remain pending, according to the the building division of the Albany Community Development Department.
Building 1 will have 20 units: two studios, four one-bedrooms, and 14 two-bedrooms. Building 2 will have 18 units with two bedrooms each.
Mega Investments LLC owns the site. It bought the former supermarket property for $2.5 million in 2021. State corporation records list the principals in the company as Sona Athwal of Albany, and Bharwinder Singh and Lal Din Sidhu, both of Salem.
The pile of refuse on the site presumably will disappear when construction of the apartments starts. (hh)
In the distance, you can just see the Periwinkle Creek Apartments.
Wow. That could turn into a pretty big, rat infested pile of trash before any building starts.
Doesn’t the City pay a code enforcement person? If so, why?
I agree, it might well save the city money in the long run or even short term.
in the pic, i see what appears to be a mattress. and some misc. trash. do we consider the black plastic as trash? the black plastic adds a lotta drama to the pic. my guess it covers construction debris. im seeing a mess, but im not seeing a dump.
everything i see in the pics other than the mattress and misc. trash looks like fill to build apartments on.
Clearly a public nuisance, subject to a fine (with 30% added for overhead).
Albany Municipal Code
8.01.020 Debris, garbage, and junk.
This kind of behavior easily gets out of hand and people who are wishing to avoid responsibility for their trash love to do this.
In the Bay Area in California, it soon took over blocks and blocks of public roads.
Really sad to see people dumping mattresses, especially since it is free to recycle them in Oregon now. We even have a drop-off location here in Albany. But that would require people to look up that info, and I guess that’s too much to ask of some people.