Holding out for Mud Bay Way

A couple of years ago I posted an entry about Rocky Point’s private roads. According to a recent article in the Kitsap Sun, I might have been on to something. While they won’t be private, attempts to standardize Kitsap County addresses may lead to more short roads in areas like Rocky Point.

The purpose of standardizing addresses, of course, is to make the 9-1-1 system more efficient. Any time wasted by emergency crews responding to a call when house numbers are out of order could be critical in saving the life of a person who needs aid. That’s important and homeowners who are assigned a new house number should deal gracefully with the hassle of changing their addresses. Easy for me to say because I’m not affected. By one estimate up to 5 percent of the homes in the county are. Yikes!

However, another part of the county-addressing code does affect my neighbors and me. There’s a provision in the code to create a road name for every driveway that provides access to three or more houses. With three homes on our shared driveway, we meet the threshold. The Kitsap Sun article quoted officials who estimated that county-wide about 200 new roads would be needed. The estimate seems low. Rocky Point would need a half-dozen or more by itself not counting the private roads homeowners have already established.

The article didn’t say whether the $120K addressing budget would pay for the new road signs, how we would be notified, or whether there would be a choice on what the new names are. I’m guessing there wouldn’t. If there is, I’m holding out for Mud Bay Way. Just like Park Avenue leads to Evergreen Park, our driveway leads to Mud Bay (although others can make the same claim).

The article also didn’t say how long it would take for GPS systems and atlases to reflect the new names.

I can see how a road sign would be easier for emergency crews to interpret than a haphazard collection of assorted old mailboxes at the entrance to a branching private driveway. But a road sign isn’t needed for our driveway. The mailboxes are well marked, the driveway is short and doesn’t branch, and the houses on it have big easy-to-read numbers. Even so, if the county says we need a road sign, I wouldn’t protest.

So will citizen desires to keep the address where they have always lived trump safety? The county commissioners seem to be well aware of the details of the project. They are also sensitive to complaints from homeowners. I think the new-roads part of the project will be derailed either completely or by a change to the code to increase the minimum number of houses before a new road is required. I will make another post if I’m wrong.

I went through the address-change process four years ago when I moved. Last time the only difference was the house number, and not everyone I notified actually noticed the change. If I need to do it again, it might be easier with a road-name change. Mud Bay Way instead of Rocky Point Road. I like it.