Street Addressing Regulations

The City of Hermitage requires all residential dwellings, commercial buildings, and other structures that assigned to a street address to post their street number in a visible manner on their structure, as well as their mailbox. Proper addressing is especially important when a citizen requests 911 services (fire, police, or ambulance). With the operating procedure used by the Mercer County 911 System in dispatching emergency services, the responding emergency service is only given the street address, not the name of the person calling. Therefore, they have to rely strictly on the street address, and if the number is not visibly posted, a problem could occur.

Proper Posting Tips

The following are some tips to help you determine whether your street address is properly posted:

1. Go to the street side in front of your structure. Can your street number be easily read from this distance? When emergency services are needed, they should be able to easily read your number from the street.
2. Is you street number obscured by the delivery flag on your mailbox, trees, shrubs, porch eaves, awnings, lawn ornaments, or other novelty decorations? Remove any obstructions that may make it difficult to read your street number on your house and mailbox.
3. The recommended minimum size for visibility of each street number is at least 4 inches high and one-half inch wide. A contrasting paint color of the number to that of the structure also helps make the address more distinguishable.
4. Is your street number on a wall-mounted mailbox situated far from the road? If you street address is shown on your mailbox, which is attached to your structure and is set back far from the road, you may want to consider a street sign posting of your address so that you may be easily located.
5. Have you removed your old rural box number from your house and mailbox? To reduce the confusion of finding you when emergency services are needed, the address which that municipality and 911 have assigned to your property should be the only number on your structure and mailbox.
6. If your property is situated on a corner parcel abutting two public streets, is your proper street address being shown from both directions? Often on corner parcels, the street address is assigned based upon the direction the house is facing. However, in some cases for safe mail deliver, the mailbox is situated on the other side street which causes the street address to be assigned on the opposite street. Therefore, if your structure is in this situation, you should include the street name of your address with your street number on your structure and mailbox.