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Homeowners Surprised, Frustrated By Address Changes

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By ELLEN GEDALIUS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 13, 2008

TAMPA - What's your address?

That seemingly simple question is baffling eight homeowners on a quiet street in Wellswood. All came home to letters from the city last month explaining their address had been changed and most major utility companies and the post office had been notified.

"Please correct your records to indicate the following address change," the notice reads. A second page explains "It is imperative to use this address as soon as possible."

Why? Because a developer owns two lots on Wishart Boulevard, one on either side of the street. The developer plans to bisect the lots and build single-family homes. To accommodate that, the city is changing the addresses of eight of the other residents on the block.

So 4606 Wishart becomes 4610. 4608 becomes 4612. 4607 becomes 4611. 4609 becomes 4615. And so on.

"Not only did they not inform us they were doing this," resident Cecilia Aziz said, "but, boom, it was done."

Aziz has lived at 4607 Wishart since 1999. She and her husband run a door installation company from their home and are fighting city hall to keep their address.

"Can you imagine what this is going to do to our business?" Aziz said. "All our correspondence? All the people we get Christmas cards from?"

The Aziz family plans to appeal the city's decision to change their address.

Equally upset is Carroll Jackson, of 4613 Wishart. Or, actually, isn't that 4623?

She has lived there for 14 years with Deborah Portugues.

They have gold-plated house numbers that are bolted in pretty tight, Jackson said. Where will she find new ones to match the original, and how will she remove them anyway?

"The biggest inconvenience is changing the numbers on our house, the driver's license, the cost associated with that and the lost mail," Jackson said.

Jackson and Portugues, like the Aziz family, wrote a letter to city hall, complaining about needing new checks, new numbers for the mailbox and their frustration in general with the situation.

Though the city is hearing from Wishart residents now, their situation isn't unique. The city processes about 50 address changes a year, meaning hundreds of people annually go through what the Wishart residents are experiencing.

It's a sign of the times, said Thom Snelling, the city's deputy director of growth management and development services. As developers choose to make the most of their lots, addresses need to be changed to accommodate the additional homes, he said.

As they renumber the 4600 block of Wishart, city planners are looking ahead, spacing the addresses out far enough to accommodate the possibility of future developers splitting lots. That's why 4607 Wishart is shifting to 4611 rather than 4609.
Wishart residents are asking why the city doesn't leave their addresses alone and give a 1/2 address to one of the homes to be built on the empty lot. For example, couldn't 4605 Wishart be 4605 and 4605 1/2? Or even 4605A and 4605B?

Snelling said emergency service personnel have trouble with 1/2 addresses.

"It's a major hassle, it's a major inconvenience, I understand that, but we want to make sure everybody gets there as soon as possible," Snelling said.

Tampa Fire Capt. Bill Wade said emergency dispatch computers can't adequately handle 1/2 and A or B addresses. Those designations get dropped to a "comments" field rather than posted with the rest of the address.

"The 1/2s and the Bs have to eventually be phased out because the technology doesn't handle it right now," Wade said. "In a truly life-and-death emergency, it can make a difference."

John Valentine, though he empathizes with the Wishart residents, offers a different perspective on the issue. Valentine lives on Granada Street in south Tampa and up until a few months ago had a 1/2 in his address.

He hated it. When placing orders online, Web sites couldn't accommodate the slash in his billing address.

"It's really a pain ... and when you order stuff it very often doesn't get to your house," Valentine said. "Ordering a pizza, calling the police - it's just not normal. It was a hassle from the minute we moved in and it never stopped being a hassle."

He asked the city to give him a new address, and officials happily obliged.

Reporter Ellen Gedalius can be reached at (813) 259-7679 or egedalius@tampatrib.com.

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