Condo owners in Regina are trying to get the city to return a rebate taken away from them last year.

Regina eliminated the condo waste rebate as part of the 2017 annual budget. It mostly applies to apartment style condominium's, meaning condo owners are required to pay property taxes for waste removal services but aren't able to utilize them.

"I’m just frustrated that what seems like common sense has been lost on some members of city council,” Prescott Condominium Corporation President Norman Brown said.

"In our condo, just under $4,000 of rebate will be lost to the condo owners,” Brown said.

At a meeting on Monday, dozens of concerned condo owners came to city council to push for the change, but the mayor was not surprised with the turnout. Mayor Michael Fougere says he’s been getting a lot of letter and calls.

"Continuously, since we made the change last year in 2017,” Mayor of Regina Michael Fougere said.

Fougere supports bringing back the rebate but says it is a budget issue.

"I voted in favour of having a rebate as part of a much larger review on waste management as part of the budget process,” Fougere said.

The city is conducting a full waste removal review that's expected to be presented by the end of June. After that, councillors will look at the rebate again. But Brown is not convinced that the review will be done by the end of next month.

"I’m afraid that it will just get lost in the shuffle unless someone is willing to pick this part out,” Brown said.

The public works and infrastructure committee was instructed to produce a report for the fall, looking at the cost and implications of reinstating the rebate program and options that would enable all condos to use the city's waste removal services.

Fougere says if council approves it, they may make a policy decision to reinstitute the rebate in time for the next budget.