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Carmel finally installs street addresses after 110 years without · Best of: Features

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  Carmel, finally installs street addresses after one hundred and ten years without
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  Written by Andrew Pridgin. This article is being read by an automated
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  voice, generated by Everlet. In Carmel, legacies are often defined by what
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  you don't do rather than what you do. Instead of being torn
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  down, structures are preserved, deemed historic. Buildings remain at a certain height
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  so they don't interfere with the tree canopy. Even high heels are
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  still illegal. Carmel has retained its indelible charms as a walkable beachfront
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  community through generations of town decision makers who did nothing but refuse
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  change. But that all changed last October. Urged by an increasingly vocal
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  majority of its residents, the Carmel City Council rolled back more than
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  a century of tradition, becoming the last incorporated city in the US
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  to adopt an address system That change is apparent today. Numerical addresses
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  are popping up all over the town's famous businesses and residences. Most
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  symbolically, City Hall got its numbers last week. When Carmel incorporated in
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  nineteen sixteen, the tiny community of writers and artistic deemed an non-address
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  system unnecessary. Then, as the city’s continued to grow, but not too
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  much, during the middle of the twentieth century, its directionally based system
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  gave rise to homes having Twi and Ironic names, like Sandy Paws
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  And
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  a turn
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  of Phrase, nods to the Storybook Village's unique literary and artistic charms.
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  The non address address system was even written into the city’s municipal
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  code, ensuring that homes and businesses would be identified by a description
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  of parcel location relative to the nearest cross street intersection, as determined
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  by the Community Planning and Building Department. And for a time it
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  call, worked out But after the turn of the twenty first century,
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  Carmel
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  residents were forced to deal with an ever changing, more complex and
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  more precise world. Suddenly, delivery trucks were circling the city's narrow streets,
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  with drivers puzzling over just where to drop off a package. More
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  importantly, emergency medical services, even those intrinsically familiar with the town and
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  its layout, sometimes couldn't find the exact location of an emergency call,
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  creating dire consequences out of a desire to remain slightly different from
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  every other town. Carmel Mayor Dale Byrne realized the issue was coming
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  to a head during a campaign event two years ago in a
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  neighbor's backyard. He said one particular resident kept asking him about the
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  lack of addresses, pressing him on what he was going to do.
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  Others joined in. He knew the it might become a defining issue
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  of his term, were he to get elected. Months later, after He
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  was elected, it was I never injected myself into it, Byrne told
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  S F Gate on Tuesday. The town went back and forth over
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  whether to implement the address system. The town held public meetings for
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  feedback, and he did some research on his own. I went and
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  talked to my friends At the fire department, and went to the
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  police department. I paid attention to the emergency response services. I saw
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  things that were pretty frightening. He described one incident he was tracking
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  one night. The fire department received a call of a person experiencing
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  a heart attack. It dispatched a fire truck to the end of
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  a difficult to navigate street, and, without being sure exactly where the
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  person was, personnel had to go door to door to see if
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  someone inside was in need of medical care. At the same time,
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  police officers were also dispatched to the scene. One officer in a
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  squad car located the person having the heart attack, and the fire
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  department came ten minutes later to save the guy. That incident, Burns
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  said, was not an isolated one, and it was clear to him
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  then that the townspeople who'd been sounding the alarm, describing the lack
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  of addresses as a life or death matter, weren't necessarily exaggerating. Carmel
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  City Council member Alessandra Dramov, previously a dissenter on having addresses, was
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  eventually convinced that an address system was the way to go. I
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  had many questions about how the address system would be implemented, and
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  I was worried about the chaos that it could potentially create because
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  we weren't given all the answers that we needed. Dramov said during
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  the october twenty twenty five meeting where the final vote was cast,
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  but over the past six months this citizens work group reassured me.
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  SF Gate reached out to Dramov for comment on initial reactions to
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  the address implementation. In some ways worries about chaos turned out to
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  be no big deal after all. I'd say there is excitement overall,
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  with a little bit of an anticlimactic sentiment, as it took nearly
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  a year for all they details to be ironed out at the
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  county, with its multiple departments, and with the various utility service providers,
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  Dromov wrote. I have not heard any negative reactions, she continued, noting
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  that the City will also help residents who still have questions about
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  addresses by hosting an in person all day workshop at City Hall,
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  at a day and time to be determined. But residents overall are
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  going about the implementation with the same creativity and whimsy that they've
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  approached life and living in Carmel with. Some folks have put their
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  numbers up already, others are waiting for a short while to get
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  inspiration from their neighbors before they choose a style or format to
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  post their numbers, she wrote. Knowing Carmel and its artistic and cultural
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  heritage, there's no question there will be some outstanding and remarkable number
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  displays put up for all to enjoy. While satisfied with the fact
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  that this city council got addresses done when others had stalled out,
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  Byrne still admits a tinge of nostalgia for a past when Carmel
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  was set apart, in that manner, from nearly everywhere else. Am I
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  proud of us having street addresses? No, I'm not, the mayor said.
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  I'm proud of the process, the homeowner and community involvement, the thorough
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  implementation that went on. I'm proud that it was city government at
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  its best. As far as the names of places in Carmel go,
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  those too will stay, with an added touch of actually knowing where
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  you are. The Forest Theater will remain, but it will also be
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  known as 707 Mountain View. Those staying at the Hof's house can
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  tell those they're meeting up with that they're at 337 San Carlos
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  Street, and folks looking to shop or dine at Carmel Plaza can
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  type 526 Ocean Avenue right into their devices. Byrne himself was sad
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  to have to add a numerical address to his beloved home's name,
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  C Mist. He took a note from his neighbor and had a
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  replica sign made, with a four digit number just below the home's
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  name. The outgoing mayor, who will not run for a re election
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  in the fall, feels that the address issue showed that Carmel could
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  come together, even when divided, make a decision and carry out a
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  plan. He hopes that spirit will carry forward in the years that
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  follow as the city faces issues with housing, parking, and infrastructure needs.
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  My legacy is that I ran a fair process, he concluded. I
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  hope that helped make the town a little better, a little friendlier.