News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Putnam County Planning Commission discussing an amendment to subdivision regulations requiring builders to provide mail service for all new subdivisions.
Cookeville Postmaster Joey Cravens said the Postal Service requires all developments with brand new roads to use cluster box units, a group mailbox with multiple individually locked compartments. Cravens said the county’s regulations do not require these units so developers can go without them. That means mail cannot be delivered there.
“It’s cost effective for the postal service,” Cravens said. “I know it’s not cost effective for the builders, I understand that. But if I had a choice of keeping my employees safe and keeping them out of people’s residence rather than put them right there in it, I’m going to pull them out of it.”
Planning Director Kevin Rush said residents in these new developments will have to get post office boxes for mail unless developers are required to provide mail service. Rush said he will simplify the resolution to say plats need to be approved by the USPS and bring it to the commission’s March meeting for consideration.
“Maybe just add that instead of where I’ve got H here and it having all this cluster box unit language, we’ll just strip that out and say mail service is required and the developer has to meet whatever postal service requirements are for mail delivery within the subdivision,” Rush said.
Cravens said builders have been opposed to CBUs because they are more expensive than traditional mailboxes. Cravens said he wants to develop a relationship with the planning commission and local builders so everyone knows what their options are.
“If they have a plat map and they come in here and they say, ‘Right here’s where I want to put it,’ if they want to do that, I would welcome that,” Cravens said. “Because I want to be involved in it. I want them not to come up and say, ‘We put it here and it’s this many inches shorter than what the stipulations are,’ and then I’m sitting there saying we’re not going to deliver it.”
Cravens said he wants to work with developers and help them figure out how to get mail service as easily as possible. Cravens shared an example with the commission where he helped a developer adjust aftermarket cluster box units that were just outside of the USPS measurement requirements so they could be used.
“I’m not going to sit here and tell someone hey, you got stuff aftermarket that’s still approved but I’m not going to let you use it,” Cravens said.
