Foothills residents will have to get used to new addresses for their mail service.
Canada Post is doing away with rural route addresses in favour of civic, or 911, addresses starting Oct. 17 as part of a Canada-wide initiative to standardize addressing.
“Rural addressing, once we’ve implemented the civic addressing, will no longer be part of your address,” said Andrew Giroux, delivery services officer with Canada Post, told MD of Foothills council on March 23. “It will in essence cease to exist.”
In addition to an address and mailbox change, those living outside hamlet boundaries will be defined by a location of “Foothills, AB,” rather than the current destination using the nearest postal outlets. The decision was made by council on March 30, at the request of Canada Post.
For those living within the current boundaries of existing hamlets and towns, there will be no change. For those residing outside the limits, it’s out with the old and in with the new.
That includes new mailboxes for rural residents. Existing green mailboxes will be replaced with new community mailboxes, which are more secure and will also be located more conveniently for residents, he said.
“When we do this civic addressing upgrade, what we do is we replace all of the old green group mailboxes with the newest equipment possible, so that’s a real benefit to everyone involved because these are a vast improvement on what you see in your rural areas,” said Giroux.
Anyone with a roadside mailbox at their property will not see a change in delivery, he said, but will still be expected to change to the civic address.
Customers will be given 12 months of free mail redirection service for the change of address, and will be reminded after one year to renew or cancel the service, he said.
The first phase of the project will focus on the northern portion of the MD, where two rural routes out of Calgary currently serve Foothills residents to the east of Highway 22X and Highway 22.
“We’ve got some routes that have both types of addressing in there,” Giroux said at the meeting. “So our objective is to start with this vague area here, and in the next few years we’ll be projecting outwards.”
It’s expected the rest of the MD will be transitioned over within the next three or four years, though the next phases of the project are undefined.
Giroux said it’s likely Priddis and Millarville areas will be part of phase two, because there is a more crossover of addresses in the region.
“We may have some customers who live in Millarville who are technically right now on Calgary RR9 or RR8, and those ones are going to be converted,” he said. “So I would like to see Priddis and/or Millarville in the next phase, for sure, though it’s a little premature for me to say they will be.”
He said the process should run smoothly and will allow Canada Post to streamline its operation.
“We find once people understand they get parcels delivered to them and everything, it’s a good system,” said Giroux.
MD Mayor Larry Spilak said he expects some residents will not be pleased with the change of address, though upgrading the mailboxes to new super boxes will be beneficial.
“We’ve had two major break-ins of mailboxes in the last couple of months, so having more secure boxes is necessary,” said Spilak.
Overall, using 911 addresses will be a more effective way to identify Foothills residents, he said, though it may take time for some residents to adjust.
“Everybody has one of those addresses assigned to them already, so everything will be brought under one umbrella now,” said Spilak. “I think it will be efficient and effective.”
