Police Officer Bill Castro told the Press that emergency response personnel have been having difficulty locating houses when responding to calls, because many house numbers are not visible from the road. He noted that this can cause delays, when every second counts.
According to Part I, Chapter 53 of the Harvard general bylaws, all houses and businesses in town are required to display, in an easily observed location, the building number assigned by the town. In situations where a building is not visible from the street, the number may be affixed to the mailbox, or if that is not possible, a sign no larger than eight inches by 12 inches can be posted at the entrance to the driveway.
In developments where more than one house or business shares a common driveway, a small sign, of the size noted above, must be posted at the end of the driveway, visible to oncoming vehicles, designating the range of house numbers the driveway services. In addition, each building serviced by the driveway must also have a small sign by its individual driveway, containing that building’s designated number.
Enforcement of the house-numbering bylaw falls under the purview of Zoning Officer Gabe Vellante, who told the Press last week that house numbering is now more important than ever.
“Harvard has become more of a transient community,” he said. “There has been an influx of new people and there are new EMTs joining the ambulance squad all the time. Not everyone knows everyone else—or where they live—anymore.”
He said that getting people to maintain their house numbers is a “constant problem,” exacerbated by things like the weather and mailbox vandalism. The peel-and-stick numbers people often use on their mailboxes frequently come off in the cold, he said. Sometimes, he added, brass numbers nailed to a tree or fencepost become tarnished and difficult to read, or become covered with snow.
Vellante said that properly mounted house numbers are a condition of receiving permits for new construction and renovations. The bylaw states, “No permit of any … kind (i.e., building, electrical, etc.) shall be issued by the town if a house, business or structure is in violation.”
Vellante is responsible for investigating complaints about violations of the house-numbering bylaw, and responds by notifying the homeowner of the violation in writing. That is usually enough to prompt compliance, he said. But if it isn’t, the bylaw authorizes a fine of $10 per day.
Vellante has experienced the house-numbering problem firsthand. He said the problem is particularly pronounced in developments where several houses share a common access road, with individual driveways branching off, noting that he has often gone up the wrong driveway, trying to find a house.
“You don’t want a fire truck or an ambulance doing that at 2 a.m.,” he said.
