Changes Proposed to Franklin County Addressing System

When there’s an emergency at your house, you want first responders, firefighters, and law enforcement to be able to find your home quickly.

That’s why Franklin County’s EMA/911 and Planning and Zoning departments are working on an updated plan to standardize how addresses are displayed.

At their work session last week, EMA Director Ryan Parks and Planning and Zoning Director Matt Haley outlined a tentative plan to the Board of Commissioners to update the EMA/911 ordinance.

According to Haley, the current ordinance regarding 911 is outdated and has become a public safety issue.

One part of the update is how house numbers are displayed.

Parks told the Board and Board Chair that there’s a problem with how people are posting their house numbers and in some cases not posting them at all, which presents a problem for 911 dispatchers and first responders.

Haley then went over their proposal for how to fix the problem of either wrong address numbers on houses or no numbers by standardizing how they’re posted.

“One of the proposals is, tackling the issue on both sides, with new addresses if EMS or fire goes out and they notice they have trouble finding an address because they’re going to an emergency call, they can let staff know,” he said. “And we can let the Marshal know and we can go check out. So if it’s out of compliance how can a person who already has an address fix it. And so there are proposals in here as to what the lettering, the requirements, and the numbers and things need to be placed.”

Haley said if passed by the Board, every new residence in Franklin County would be required to post a house number according to the same standards in the new ordinance.

The updated ordinance would require the house number sign would be green, reflective, and double-sided and would cost between $12-$18.

Haley said the updated ordinance will also have requirements for where the sign needs to be placed.

Another part of the updated ordinance would be how to address the problem of private driveways being turned into private roads and how to go about that process through the County.

After hearing from Parks and Haley, Commission Chair Jeff Jacques asked the Board to review the updated ordinance but no timeline was put in place to vote on the updates.