By Beth Velliquette, Chapel Hill Herald
Original publication date: Feb. 18, 2011

Chapel Hill, N.C. — An Orange County government project that was started in 1987, but stalled in 1991, is being brought back to life, and it’s likely there will be plenty of people who aren’t going to be too happy about it.

Orange County is working on an ordinance that will require residents who have the “wrong addresses” to correct them.

“It’s going to have an impact,” said Steve Averett, GIS director for Orange County. “You’re going to hear from people.”

The county has more than 2,000 addresses that are out of sequence, not addressed to the proper road, addressed to the wrong side of the road, not displaying the correct house numbers, not displaying the address in an appropriate manner or not displaying the address at all, Averett told the Orange County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.

The county also has more than 100 streets that don’t have proper spacing between the numbered addresses, have duplicate or phonetically similar street names, do not have street signs posted or have a complete address.

For example, there are four streets named Short Street in Orange County; one is in Chapel Hill, one in Carrboro, one in Hillsborough and one north of Hillsborough, Averett said.

Somebody calling for help in a panic on a cell phone might tell the 911 dispatcher he needs an ambulance, quick, on Short Street, and then hang up. The dispatcher would have no idea to which Short Street to send the paramedic.

Other street names may sound too much alike, such as Briarwood and Brightwood, Averett said.

Commissioner Earl McKee, who was a charter member of the Caldwell Fire Department and has served as its chief, said there is nothing more frustrating for an emergency responder than trying to find a house at 3 a.m. with an incorrect address or no address when there is a life-or-death emergency.

“I assure you that a lot of the people who have objected to having a change in address would have a different perspective if they’re waiting at 3 o’clock in the morning for an ambulance that can’t find their address,” McKee said.

The county commissioners and staff expect many of those affected to object to having to change their addresses, especially those people who have had the same address for a long time.

Commissioner Steve Yuhasz said many of the objections are likely to come from long-time residents who live on some of the older streets in the county and who might be the most resistant to change.

“I hope we can educate them that they’ll have readily available services in an emergency,” he said.

Anyone who has to change an address will have to change their driver’s license, all the paperwork that pertains to their home, and contact all the companies they do business with to change the address on their records.

Another group of people who may be affected are those who live on private drives. It is required that anyone living on a private drive longer than 500 feet to name the drive and put a street sign out at the main road.

Some may have named their drive years ago and may find out that the name they gave it has a name that is the same or too similar to a more established road, which could require them to change it.

Some private roads can be 2,000 to 3,000 feet long, have several houses on them and do not have a street sign or numbers on the houses, Averett said.

“The ordinance hopefully will make sure they have to name the drive, put a street sign up and have addresses on that road,” Averett said.

Because some people may not want to change their address, the ordinance must have some enforcement powers, Clifton said.

In addition to causing a problem for emergency services, the wrong addresses could cause a loss of revenue for the county because of improper assessment of property, loss of revenue due to inefficient assessment of some fees, inefficient environmental, health and building inspections processes, and inefficiencies in identifying proper voting precincts for voters.

Incorrect addresses could also create difficulties for the Economic Development Department in identifying properties for potential customers, cause less precise data for various analyses of the need for services in various areas, and create inefficient delivery of mail and packages.

A project to correct incorrect addresses began in 1987. Some were identified and corrected, but others weren’t, partly because of the objection of the residents to the changes. The effort lasted until 1991.

In 1993 a proposed ordinance was drafted by the Orange County Planning Department that would have provided the authority to resolve the issues, but the ordinance was not adopted.

In 2001, the addressing function was transferred to the Lands Records Department, and the director created a Master Orange Address Database. In 2007, a contractor who was hired to verify all existing addresses in the county issued a report that indicated there were thousands of instances of incorrect addresses or of residents not displaying their address appropriately or not at all.

Since then the project stalled again because of key people retiring and the departments being reorganized.

During the next six to eight months, the staff plans to contact the municipalities about creating an addressing ordinance, then present a draft of the ordinance to the commissioners, hold public hearings and adopt the ordinance.

It’s likely residents would be granted six months to comply with the ordinance, which would become effective next March.

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