W. Valley donation boxes scrutinized

The proliferation of donation boxes in parking lots around the West Valley has caused residents to complain and some cities to call for limits on where the boxes can be placed and better identification of who is operating them.

Surprise is the latest West Valley city after Peoria and Goodyear to regulate donation bins that sometimes appear in shopping centers or strip mall parking lots without permission from property owners.

Surprise and Peoria recently passed ordinances that require donation-bin owners to obtain temporary-use permits and to print the permit numbers in 2-inch letters on the front of the bin to help with enforcement. There are other requirements that donation-bin owners now must follow, such as listing the owner’s legitimate telephone number on the bin.

Phoenix also has donation-box regulations, and the Glendale City Council has begun talking about regulating donation bins. Goodyear adopted its donation-bin regulations several years ago, and the ordinance requires box owners to get a zon- ing permit from the Community Development Department.

Donation bins are boxes used to collect items such as clothes, books and toys for charitable and for-profit uses such as recycling. They are typically found in parking areas of commercial centers and churches.

Hobart Wingard, a Surprise city planner, said the city began receiving increasing complaints from residents about the donation boxes.

“As soon as you get notified about something, you start seeing it a lot more,” Wingard said. “So we went out and did an inventory and found we had quite a few of these, and since then, these have grown quite a bit. I believe we had about 65 of these, and I’m sure it is well past that number now. These things seem to sprout like mushrooms.”

Peoria passed an ordinance on April 7, and Surprise approved an almost identical ordinance on April 21.

Some donation boxes are operated by non-profit organizations, while others are operated by for-profit companies.

Surprise and Peoria want to keep the bins out of rights of way, pedestrian corridors, fire lanes and empty lots.