Back Bay throws out a challenge

When the city installed dozens of shiny new solar-powered trash compactors across Boston last summer, they were hailed as a major improvement over ordinary street garbage bins.

But in the Back Bay, the new receptacles are not being embraced.

With its brick sidewalks and mansard-roofed row houses, the area is no place for the bulky, bright green trash compactors, many neighborhood leaders say. The Back Bay Architectural Commission has voted to give the city a year to come up with a new design that is "sympathetic to the historic context of the neighborhood."

Some Back Bay organizations, while no fans of the design, say the trash receptacles' advantages make up for their lack of historical flourish. But the powerful architectural commission, which has authority over the streetscape and exterior of buildings, has the ultimate say-so.

The receptacles are enclosed so that trash doesn't blow away on windy days. They can handle more garbage because of the compactor, so trash crews can visit less often.

But the commission says the compactors take up too much space on the sidewalks and detract from their surroundings.

"Here you have this historic street with historic streetlights and furniture, and then you have this . . . thing," said Harry Moraitis, a commission member who described them as big, squat refrigerators. "We're just trying to make it look more appropriate to the neighborhood."

In a letter to the city, the commission has suggested possibilities for improving the semi-industrial appearance of the metal boxes, for example, by housing them in "an ornamental protective cage of wrought iron." Also, they should be black, the commission said, not green.

City officials say they will consider the request to find an alternative, but might just remove all the bins and replace the old black wrought-iron trash cans.

Officials of the company that makes the receptacles say that any new design would probably fall short of the neighborhood's expectations.

"It's like having a historic-looking rocket ship. This is a solar-powered mechanical device," said Jack Kutner, senior vice president at Seahorse Power Co., the Needham company that created the BigBelly Cordless Compaction System. "In theory, could we develop it in a chassis that is in a historic barrel? No one has explained to us what that would mean. What does a historic-looking solar powered trash compactor look like?"

He said the company is already working on a new compactor that could be used in Boston and elsewhere because it is smaller -- with a footprint of 4.7 square feet on the sidewalk, instead of the current 6.3 square feet -- and has a slightly sleeker, more rounded look. It also comes in black.

"Whether that's going to make it look like something Ben Franklin would want to throw his trash into, I don't know," Kutner said.

Those new compactors could be tested in Boston in February or March and be ready for purchase by the summer, he said. They would cost about the same, $3,600 per unit.

Tim McCarthy, a public works official who has been attending neighborhood meetings on the issue, said the city will try to convince the architectural commission that the new, smaller compactors are good enough for the neighborhood, but he said the city probably will not buy something especially for the Back Bay.

"What about other neighborhoods?" McCarthy said. "We can work with colors and things like that, but to design a barrel for a specific neighborhood is going to be counterproductive."

The devices are powered by photoelectric panels, which supply power to motor-driven compactors inside. Workers extract neat, 40-pound trash bricks, instead of the messy contents of an overflowing can.

The bins hold some 150 gallons of trash, about five times the amount of a standard city street trash can, and need to be emptied by sanitation workers only once or twice a day, not the 15 or more times required at some downtown trash cans.

In July, as part of a pilot program of 50 receptacles, the city installed 20 in the Back Bay historic district along Boylston and Newbury streets. Earlier this month, the city sought approval of the Back Bay Architectural Commission to keep the compactors there permanently. The commission denied the request, and the city is to come back in three months with sketches of a new machine.

If the architectural commission turns down the new design, McCarthy said, the city could pick up the trash receptacles in the Back Bay and take them to neighborhoods that have been requesting the bins for months, such as Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, and South Boston.

Some in Back Bay hope that a version of the new compactors stays.

"The bottom line is that we have a new model of a trash compactor, and it takes an awful lot of trash," said Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, which represents area businesses. "There are ways that we have to evolve to accommodate the needs of the community."

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.