La Plata County

Street Naming and Address Assignment Policy

Printable version (.pdf)

Purpose

The La Plata County Street Naming and Address Assignment Policy has been adopted for the purpose of providing proper implementation, administration, enforcement, and maintenance of a uniform street naming and addressing policy to assist the public, public safety, and emergency services providers in the consistent identification of roadways and property addresses. The Policy shall be applicable to all lands within the unincorporated areas of La Plata County, Colorado.

This Policy has been enacted for t he purpose of establishing and maintaining an address system for La Plata County, Colorado, defining policies and procedures related to the naming of roads, signing of roads, assigning of addresses, location of address signs and house numbers, and ongoing maintenance of the system. The intent of this system is to assign each location a unique address which will aid emergency services personnel in providing law enforcement services, fire protection, emergency medical services, mail delivery and meet other general location needs of the public.

The La Plata County Street Naming and Address Assignment Policy is to be used by La Plata County Government to assign permanent addresses to properties in the rural, unincorporated areas of La Plata County. Rural addresses shall be assigned to newly built structures, existing structures, and any other location that, for any reason, is in need of an address.

Naming of Streets/Roadways

The following standards shall be used in the naming or re-naming of streets within the unincorporated areas of La Plata County. Adopting official names will eliminate the ambiguities in the spelling and suffixes of streets in La Plata County. Standard spellings and suffixes are especially important for emergency response vehicles (law enforcement, fire, and medical). Confusion among destinations such as streets, roads, lanes, ways, etc. can create unnecessary and dangerous delays to the citizens of the community.

a) There shall be no duplication of street names by sound or spelling. The name of any proposed new road or the renaming of an existing road shall not duplicate, or too closely approximate phonetically, the name of any other road or street name in the County. Differentiation shall not be by the addition of suffixes such as road, street, lane, trail, way, etc.

b) No new street names shall be used which will duplicate or be confused with names of existing streets anywhere within La Plata County (including City of Durango, Towns of Bayfield and Ignacio, and Tribal developments) unless a street is a continuation, or in alignment with, an existing or platted street of the same name which shall be connected or has the possibility of being connected in the future.

c) A street name should be easy to read so that children can use the name in an emergency situation.

d) Names tending to be offensive (slang, double meaning, etc) shall be avoided.

e) Use of frivolous or complicated words, or unconventional spellings in road names is discouraged OR not allowed.

f) Special characters such as hyphens, commas, apostrophes, or dashes are not to be used in street/road names.

g) The use of standard suffixes or directional suffixes as street names is not allowed (e.g. North Street, Court Street, Avenue of Pines).

h) Personal names are not allowed to be used as street/road names unless the name has a historical connection to the property/area.

i) Names of living persons or current organizations may not be used. Names of deceased persons may be used only where they had a direct and long term association with the locality.

j) The County shall have the right to refuse use of any street/road name deemed confusing for purposes of emergency response.

k) Any new street/road serving more than three (3) residences and/or parcels of land, whether public or private, or whether reviewed by La Plata County through the County’s Planning/Subdivision process, shall be named.

l) Streets/roads generally a part of or extensions of existing streets/roads shall take the same name as the existing street/road. Example: a private road extending from the end of a dead-end County Road will retain the same name as the County Road, and a single road making a turn that will not later become an intersection will not change names at the turn.

m) Any old road naming policy (in writing or not) is hereby replaced. And all codes and/or resolutions in conflict with this Policy are hereby repealed.

n) All streets created by the subdivision process will have proposed road names reviewed and approved by the County prior to submission of the final plat.

o) Private streets, at the request of the owner(s), may be named and addresses issued by the County. Private streets are subject to the same street name standards as public streets. All private street name signs will be provided and maintained at the owner(s) expense OR by the La Plata County.

Road Signs

Road name signs shall be installed at the intersections of all streets/roads that are used for address assignment within La Plata County. The road name signs shall be installed and maintained as to be clearly visible from the traveled surface of the roadway all hours of the day and night. All road name signs throughout the unincorporated areas of La Plata County shall meet the specifications and requirements of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).

1) Section 74-93 of the La Plata County Code states:

a) All signs, signing, striping, signalization, markers, delineators, signals, and other traffic control devices shall conform to the requirements of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, as published by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highways Administration;

b) In new developments, all required street name signs, speed limit signs, stop signs, and other traffic control devices are to be installed to the satisfaction of the County’s engineer and paid for by the developer;

c) Nonstandard signs or other traffic control devices are subject to the control and approval of the County’s engineer. Requests to install non-standard signs or other devices must be submitted to the county’s engineer along with data required to support the request. (LPLUS, § 4.7).

2) Each intersection sign unit consisting of two or more road name sign plates on a post shall be oriented in the same direction as the respective roads being named. Street signs shall be readable from any direction of travel on particular roadway(s).

Address Numbers

In 1977 La Plata County Government officially accepted the Milepost Rural Addressing System that is currently used in this County. The Milepost System was originally created by Mountain Bell, (now Qwest), and provided a numerical system which ultimately provided a physical numbered location for all residences and businesses in the County. The system would ultimately aid emergency responses from police, medical, and fire protection services and aid utility companies and the Postal Service in fulfilling their responsibilities.

Every 5.28 feet of each highway, County Road, road, or subdivision road has a number depending upon its location in a particular mile section of a road, highway, or County Road. In some cases more than one home or business is situated on a particular driveway. This situation results in many address numbers being assigned on one driveway and the concept of each driveway having its own number is distorted. Therefore, where this multiple situation occurs it may be necessary to name that particular road or driveway and assign numbers for those residences or businesses based on their location on that road.

When dealing with rural addressing issues, it is the policy of the La Plata County Building Department to require a street/road name for any private driveway, access easement, shared access, etc., that serves more than three (3) residences.

Milepost Rural Addressing System means the type of addressing system in which addresses are determined based on their distance from the origin of the road. Every mile section of a roadway is broken into 100 parts (a different address number every 5.28 feet).

Each site address will consist of an address number followed by a road name. In some instances, where duplicate road names exist, a road name may be followed by a subdivision name. Example: Aspen Drive - DW2; Aspen Drive - Aspen Trails; Aspen Drive - Lake of the Pines; Aspen Drive - Wilderness Lakes.

Printable version (.pdf)