After decades of resistance, Carmel-by-the-Sea is about to address Some of the greatest frustrations of its residents.
Literally.
The small money in money, where houses and businesses have no street address, soon aura numbers awarded To his buildings, to give up a local tradition cherished after too many complaints concerning lost packages, the difficulty in creating public services and bank accounts and other problems.
Carmel-by-the-Sea municipal council approved the creation of street addresses during a 3-2 vote Earlier this monthSupporters citing public security problems and the need to respect the state fire code, which requires that the buildings be numbered.
“Should we wait for someone to die in order to decide that it is the right thing to do? It is the law,” said the member of the Council Karen Ferlito, who voted in favor of the addresses.
Rather than street numbers, city residents of 3,200 have long used directional descriptors: the town hall is on the east side of Monte Verde street between the ocean and the 7th avenues. And they give their houses fanciful names such as the sea castle, somewhere and a false castle.
There is no home mail delivery. The inhabitants collect their plots at the post office office in the city center, where, say a lot, the makerships with neighbors are an essential part of the charm of the small town.
For more than 100 years, residents fought to keep it so, Once threatening to separate California if addresses have been imposed. They argued that the lack of house numbers – as well as other quirks, such as no lamps or sidewalks in the residential areas – added to the “village character”.
“We lose this place, day by day and week per week, people who want to modernize us, who want to take us to a new level, when we want to stay where we are,” said Neal Kruse, co -president of the Carmel Preservation Assn.
Carol Oaks stands in front of his house, which is named “SomeWhere” and has no formal address. Carmel-by-the-Sea will soon have its houses and businesses.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The debate on street numbers has simmered for years and intensified during the COVVI-19 pandemic, when people started to shop online more frequently and had trouble having their packages delivered.
Some residents and tourists fear that if they have an accident or a medical problem, emergency stakeholders will find it difficult to find them. Others have struggled to receive correspondence sales orders and medical equipment.
“This is a situation of life and death in my life and my family,” said Deanna Dickman, a resident, to the municipal council. “I want a street address that people can find on GPS and get there, and my wife can get the medication she needs.”
Dickman said that his wife needed a posting shot and must be refrigerated. If she cannot have it delivered, she must go to a infusion center and get her medicines every 30 days “to be able to breathe,” said Dickman.
Dickman once had his own drugs controlled by the temperature “thrown on a closure to a house pâté”. The owner was not at home and he is spoiled.
Resident Susan Bjerre said she needed oxygen once needed to her house for someone who had just left the hospital. The delivery driver could not find the residence, so she said: “I will be in the street. I'll signal you.”
“It will seem really devious, but I think that the people who oppose the institute of an address system do not realize how inconsiderate they are for everyone,” said Bjerre.
Another speaker, Alice Cory, said that she feared that the implementation of addresses in Carmel-by-the-Sea-a haven for artists, writers and poets-“would just make another city along the coast.”
In the city of a mile of a square, “the police know where everyone is” and fire officials quickly go to people because there are so few streets, she said.
“Let's keep this as well, and keep the sweetness of this small town, because people know Carmel for a reason,” she said.
Neal Kruse, center, with Karyl Hall and his dog, Bubbles, chat with a carmel preservation resident. Booth in a producer market. The addresses of Kruse and hall worry of the street will harm the character of the city.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Emily Garay, an administrative analyst of the city, told the Council that if the local authorities could be familiar with the unconventional navigation practices of Carmel-by-the-Sea, other emergency stakeholders-such as the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection or the Supplier of Ambulance under contract of Monterey-may have trouble.
THE Californi code Requires buildings to have and display addresses. But Carmel-by-the-Sea did not apply the layout.
“I believe, as a professional firefighter for over 37 years (with) a lot of emergency intervention experience, than if the question is:” Is it more advantageous than the construction numbers are identified? ” Yes, absolutely, “said Andrew Miller, head of the Monterey fire service, on the board.
Residents opposed to street addresses have said that they fear that numbering houses will lead to home mail delivery-which, in turn, could trigger the closure of the Carmel-by-the Sea post office.
In January, David Rupert, a spokesperson for the American postal service, told Times that the post office “served the local community since 1889” and that it was not planned to close it. (The post office hall was onion this spring after a septuagenarian crushed his red Tesla through the front windows.)
Garay said addresses would not trigger home delivery.
Before voting against addresses, the mayor Dave Potter said that he was “concerned about the fact that we are losing our character from our community along the way here” and that he had become the nature of the community “to fight against little things”.
But Ferlito said she had received “heaps of resident email” who wanted addresses and worried about being in a crisis.
“If we say that we will lose our picturesque because we have an address, I think it's a false story,” she said. “It's more than picturesque. These are emergencies of life. ”
