City moves to clarify address numbering

The City of Yorkton is moving to bring some rules to how home and business street addresses are applied in the city.

At the regular meeting of Council Monday City Planner Michael Eger told Council that while the Planning and Engineering Department have been responsible for the assignment of civic addresses, it has not been working well.

"It has become increasingly more apparent that there is a large disparity in the application of addresses. Not only are existing addresses often configured in an illogical manner, new developments have been establishing their own addresses before the City has been able to formally assign them," detailed a report by Eger to Council.

To address the issue a Civic Addressing Policy was given unanimous support by Council.

Eger said the policy was created in consultation with Crestview Ambulance, Yorkton Fire Services, Yorkton RCMP, and Canada Post.

The primary purpose of the Civic Addressing Policy is to create a logical, consistent addressing scheme. This will provide many benefits by:

reducing response time to emergency calls;

mitigating postal service interruptions;

helping the general public to navigate the City;

clarifying City records by determining which civic addresses apply to each tax roll number;

making assignment of civic numbers easier and faster for the Addressing Officer.

Of course having a policy is only the first step. It must be enforced.

"Display of civic numbers will be enforced under Property Standards Bylaw. This will begin on May 1, 2012," said Egers.

As the Bylaw comes into force, the City and Fire Services will be going door-to-door mandating that property owners display the proper civic number on their unit/building.

It is intended for the Policy to be applied mostly to new developments. However, redevelopments under the authority of a Development Permit, Building Permit and/or subdivision/consolidation will allow the City to reassign civic numbers. Planning and Engineering will continue to work closely with all City departments to properly implement and enforce civic addressing requirements, detailed the report circulated Monday.