As city sidewalk work progresses, an understanding of property lines and mailbox requirements needs to be shared, according to city officials.
At its April 23 meeting, City Council heard an update on post office mailbox rules and the city’s efforts to deal with homeowners unaware of existing postal and property regulations.
City Director of Engineering and Mobility Jeff Carroll said postal regulations contain no language on mailbox posts, or how a mailbox is attached, other than specific rules on efficiency of service.
However, the Federal Highway Administration and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) both have very specific rules customers must follow along their rights of way.
The FHA requires “breakaway mailboxes,” consisting of 4-by-4 maximum wood posts or a 2-inch metal pipe. TxDOT also requires a breakaway support.
Neither, however, allows for installation of masonry, brick or rock mailboxes.
“We have many of those in town. None of them were permitted by the city; they kind of magically appeared over time,” Carroll said.
“When we do a sidewalk project or one of our road-widening projects, (those) do not meet our city rules, they do not meet any of these other rules,” Carroll told council. “We don’t replace those types of mailboxes. We change them back to a postal box that meets our rules.”
New rules defining special accessibility rules in public rights of way related to the Americans with Disabilities Act require a 4-foot clearance. As a result, Carroll said, “we’re having to change some of our sidewalks.”
On the city’s current Oak Park Drive sidewalk project, he said the city has moved mailboxes to abide by the 48-inch clear.
“Lots of people think the edge of the pavement or the curb, is where their property line starts,” he said. “Most places in the new modern area of town it’s 8 or 10 feet from the curb to the actual property line.”
In older sections off town, such as School Street, “it’s just a foot or two, that’s all the room we have from the edge of the pavement to the actual property line,” he added.
Carroll explained postal service rules require a continuance of the existing mode of delivery. Mail delivered to a mailbox at the door will continue that way forever.
“If you have a mailbox out on the street, they have to keep delivering it to the mailbox out on the street. They are not allowed to arbitrarily change everything to clusters,” he said.
Cluster boxes — with anywhere from 20 to 40 lockable boxes on a metal post, where postal employees place mail from the back and customers have individual keys to retrieve their mail from the front — are not popular with current single-delivery mail customers, he said.
When the city is doing curb and sidewalk work, he said the city cannot arbitrarily change that method of mail delivery. Homeowners associations are allowed to install cluster boxes, he added.
But any change in roadway, curb and sidewalk widths into an easement may force the movement of a mailbox. Carroll said the city will have to deal with the issue should continued road widening and new sidewalk projects begin to occur, displacing residential mailboxes in the process.
“Lots of people think the edge of the pavement or the curb, is where their property line starts. Most places in the new modern area of town it’s eight or 10 feet from the curb to the actual property line.”
– Jeff Carroll City director of engineering and mobility
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