McConnell residents went to their neighborhood green over the weekend to sign petitions either for or against adding mailboxes. Helping staff the table were Gretchen Greene (at right) and Rachel Wacker (in green coat).
LaRay Todd has had his water shut off twice since moving to the McConnell neighborhood in Davidson seven months ago. It’s not that Mr. Todd refuses to pay his bills, but rather that his bills were repeatedly sent to his address on Spencer Street – an address not recognized for mail delivery by the U.S. Postal Service. His homeowners association requires that he receive mail through a post office box in town (about a mile down Concord Road) instead of at his curb.
Mail delivery frustrations led Mr. Todd to join an effort to get his neighbors to approve mailboxes for McConnell. “People have had liens put on their homes because of this,” Mr. Todd said.
PETITION DRIVE
Mr. Todd and the five other members of the McConnell mailboxes committee – Jenni Dellinger, Gretchen Greene, Lotta Griffen and Rachel Wacker – are seeking an amendment to the “Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions” for the neighborhood’s homeowner association, established in 1993.
Section 15 of the of the declaration’s article on use restrictions states: “No receptacles for the delivery of mail, newspapers, publications or other similar items shall be placed or maintained on any lot unless directly attached to the dwelling erected on such lot.” The U.S. Postal Service has long required curbside mailboxes rather than door slots for new developments. That means Section 15 effectively rules out mailboxes for McConnell. The only alternative for regular mail delivery is a box at the post office in town.
Changing that rule requires the approval of 75 percent of homeowners, or collecting 152 “yes” statements from among the 202 McConnell properties.
The mailbox committee launched its petition drive this weekend, setting up a table on the McConnell green and offering residents a chance to sign their names either for or against a mailbox amendment. As of Sunday afternoon, the “yes” vote was leading 82-6.
Committee member Lotta Griffen is under no illusions about how the campaign will end. She still remembers the last time the neighborhood held a vote on mailboxes, four years ago.
“It didn’t pass,” Ms. Griffen said, attributing opposition to concerns that mailboxes would be too expensive and wouldn’t be optional.
PROS AND CONS
Feelings run strong on both sides of the issue, and committee members said they “got an earful” from a few neighbors who are adamantly opposed to mailboxes.
Committee member Gretchen Greene said the primary reasons for opposing mailboxes that she has heard are: concerns about aesthetics and appearance, fears of vandalism and concerns about identity theft.
“And some people just plain don’t want them,” Ms. Greene acknowledged.
Ms. Griffen said her committee is trying to make it clear that no one would be required to use or put out a mailbox. She also thinks the tide may be shifting, since many of the residents who have moved into McConnell since the last vote favor mailboxes. She and other committee members can cite a litany of frustrations heard from residents who wish they had mailboxes.
Once the signatures gathered over the weekend have been tabulated and cross-checked against homeowner lists, members of the mailbox committee will start to go door-to-door to collect the opinions of the rest of the neighbors.
“We had some people who voted ‘yes’ even though they don’t want mailboxes,” Mr. Todd noted. “They were willing to do that because they know their neighbors want them. That’s a very magnanimous gesture. This is all about allowing people, such as myself, who want a mailbox to be able to have one.”
PERENNIAL POST OFFICE ISSUE
Elaine Funderburk said she has encountered the mailboxes for McConnell issue repeatedly during her 18 years as post Davidson’s post mistress. “The votes have gone up every time, but it’s never been enough,” she said.
The neighborhood was established in the early 1990s by Davidson College, to provide affordable housing for professors and staff, and the college was involved in drafting the covenants that prohibit curbside mailboxes.
“It was a condition of development for the college,” Ms. Funderburk said.
If the covenant change is approved this time around, Ms. Funderburk said the neighborhood would need to decide whether to build clusters of mailboxes, separate ones for each address, or even a sheltered mail commons at a central location in McConnell.
“They do qualify for rural delivery,” she stressed.
And other neighborhoods in Davidson have changed their minds about mail delivery. Ms. Funderburk said homeowners in Spinnaker Cove, off Griffith Street, voted to change its covenants to allow mailboxes. Residents chose to build posts with two boxes each for the development’s relatively small lots.
“That was cost effective and looks better,” she explained.
Davidson Landing, near Exit 30, is an example of a development with clustered shelters – the 700 residents have 19 delivery sites.
Though Ms. Funderburk indicated that she would welcome a mailbox initiative from McConnell, she sounded skeptical about the current petition’s outcome. “I’ve just been through this so many times,” she said.
We live behind McConnell in the New Neighborhood, which also does not allow mailboxes. When we first moved here, I thought the prohibition on mailboxes was silly. I quickly came to think otherwise. Going to the post office (OK, I admit my wife does it most of the time) is a nice way to run into people and is a bit of a throwback to the old days.
I can certainly sympathize with the mailing address issue as it relates to the water department. My company – John Marshall Custom Homes – has been placed in collection at least twice for failure to pay water bills that we never received because they were sent to the service address. CMUD admits they have difficulties with Davidson.
Perhaps the efforts of the McConnell folks could also be directed towards going to a county commissioners meeting (or e-mailing county manager Harry Jones at Harry.Jones@mecklenburgcountync.gov) and asking that their departments figure out how to send bills to Davidson.
Rodney,
While I agree that “going to the post office is a nice way to run into people,” I still don’t understand why everyone in a neighborhood must be forced to do it, especially given all the potential negative outcomes such as having your water service disconnected or your Christmas presents returned to sender.
There are also disabled McConnell residents for whom traveling to the post office can be a real hardship.
That said, there are a lot of stubborn people, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ms. Funderburk’s prediction is right.
In my opinion, the energy devoted over the years to McConnell’s mailbox issue has been misdirected. I agree that the choice to place a mailbox on one’s property or to retrieve mail at the Post Office should be an entirely personal one. But, why not extend that same respect for individual choice to exterior paint colors, fence materials, and air-dried laundry? We sacrifice much by opting for HOA governance instead of relying on good, old-fashioned neighborliness.
Just as surely as I will trust my “mailboxed” neighbors to maintain their connections to Town and our piece of the community without daily visits to the PO, so am I confident that we could all manage to resolve misunderstandings and genuine grievances without the help (or interference?) of a paid management company.
We’d be far better served putting our collective energy into dissolving the HOA, deeding our common space to the Town for public use, and dispensing with the notion that neighbors can’t relate to one another without the artifice of HOA covenants. In doing so, we’d resolve the mailbox issue once and for all and extend the benefit of individual choice and communal respect and responsibilty to all facets of our relationship as neighbors. And I bet we’d all find something more constrcutive to do with the fees we send the HOA!
Not to mention mothers with young children. If you’ve ever tried to wrangle 2 small kids into town just to check the mail, or had to take them in and out of car seats for an extra stop you know exactly how much of a pain this is. While we are out of the small kids stage, I can’t count the number of times something has been returned because it was sent the wrong way (UPS/FEDEX to the PO box or USPS to the street address). It happens several times a year. Having said all that, my biggest problem is that we are not asking the people that don’t want a mailbox to get one, but they presume to keep those of us that do from having one. The other problem I have is that an obvious majority (we’ll soon find out if it’s 75%) want mail boxes, and the people that don’t are in the minority.
Just my 2 cents… your mileage may vary.
Connie:
Sure, sign me up, as long as the town would agree to maintain the common spaces. But first I want a mailbox.
Somehow my Davidson water bill manages to get to my Cramerton address each month. If the utilities folk can keep that distinction between service and mailing locations straight, they ought to be able to send bills to a Davidson PO box.
I’ll get a Davidson PO box some time in the next few months. I wonder if I should get my water bills sent there, now that I hear the tribulations of Davidson folk.
The USPS used to say that the proper way to address mail is with the street address on the first address line and the PO Box on the second line. Most forms I see allow two address lines above city, state, zip. Does that not work for folk, or does UPS see a PO Box and send it back and the USPS see a street address and pretend not to see the box number?
I’d be OK with a centralized set of mailboxes in the New Neighborhood as long as it was at the other end of the neighborhood, out of my way. The downside is that I planned to have a daily walk to the post office as part of my routine when I retire, and I’ll be less likely to go if I don’t have to.