I have just started as the Mapping Tech for our Borough. We are on an island in Alaska with a population of about 3,000 people.
This position brings me many exciting challenges. The first one to deal with is a naming convention of houses/driveways off of our Highway. Our one and only Highway.
What is a proper rule for assigning address for a community? We have in town address; what we are in need of is defining where people live "out the road"/off of this Highway. Our emergency responders & utility readers will be of most use for this address.
As of now the people state what mile marker they are at. "12.3 mile". I lived out the road in a hike in cabin and there were 6 houses off of our one driveway that we all shared to get access to our houses. We all used for our physical address "12.3 Mile". We all can not be sharing this address any longer, it is problematic now.
How do we assign and still allow for growth? Plots could one day be divided and a new house/cabin built, and we will then need room for a new house number to be assigned to this change.
A challenge is this: We have the Highway. Off of the highway is a driveway leading up to someones house with large parcels of land. Some may want to keep their land and never sell or build anything on it. Others will split their parcel, or have another family member build another house on their land. They are still using this one driveway that connects directly off of the highway (houses are out of site from this hwy; you go up a long driveway usually and then spot a house or two...or four.)
My question is when does a driveway turn into a road? Do we then name that driveway and assign it to be a street off of that highway? When do we do that? We can only change someone's address once, which is now.
How do we come up with a naming convention for a one time change and still allow for growth/change?
I would value your input or further questions that you may have for me.