Some won’t trust the security of the group mailboxes, no matter how many assurances they receive. “It’s hardly wild speculation to predict that people will not relish having to go out into the weather every time they want to retrieve their mail. The situation even prompted Syndicated Columnist Bob Greene to wax poetic on the topic recently on CNN: They expected their mail to be delivered to their homes, but that’s not going to be the case.”Ī recent study by Gallup on behalf the USPS Inspector General’s office found door-to-door or curb delivery is not going to die hard among homeowners, who place a high value on maintaining the status quo. Some builders spent $60,000 to $70,000 to put in boxes they were not counting on when they started, Minton says. And in other instances, mail is delivered in half of the subdivision and developers have to put in cluster boxes for the homes in the other half. In many cases, says Minton, there wasn’t any place to put them. Moreover, it wouldn’t grant a waiver to subdivisions that were already approved but weren’t started until the housing downturn had turned upward.Ĭonsequently, some projects that were cleared three or four years ago found out mid-stream that cluster boxes were required.
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Postal Service (USPS) is now requiring builders and developers to purchase and install kiosks holding a cluster of individual mail boxes. In North Carolina, according to Tim Minton, director of government affairs for the North Carolina Home Builders Association, the USPS failed to notify both builders and the local building authorities that it was no longer going to deliver to individual houses. Under pressure to cut costs wherever possible, the U.S. Ditto for those in infill sites, where the neighboring older homes still have their mail delivered to their doors. But in other places such as Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, builders are finding them a tough requirement to swallow.
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Under siege from the Internet and other, less expensive competitors, the Postal Service revised its operations manual to make cluster boxes the default for new residential development, even in those large lot subdivisions were houses can be acres apart.īuilders in some places around the country – Oregon is one that comes to mind – have been dealing with cluster boxes for years and have come to accept them. The momentum, though, changed in 2012, says Worshtil. But builders usually have been able to stop local postal officials from switching to them in communities where the single-family homes are detached, according to Claire Worshtil, senior program manager for land use at the National Association of Home Builders. In some instances, they put the centralized units in customized buildings that blend in with the community decor.Ĭluster boxes have been the norm in most attached townhouse communities for years. In climates where intemperate weather is a factor, builders sometimes decide to spiff up their kiosks with overhead roofs and lighting, making them resemble covered bus stops, but that adds an even greater cost factor.
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Each box can cost $1,000 or more, depending on the style and size.īeyond that, developers are free to individualize the installations. The Post Office defines cluster units as free-standing, pedestal mounted metal mailboxes containing eight, 12, 13 or 16 individually locked mailboxes and parcel compartments.
With mail safely tucked away in locked boxes, there is far less chance that identity thieves will be able to snatch your letters, bills and checks.Īt the same time, though, requiring builders to supply the cluster boxes adds another layer of cost to their homes, not to mention the inconvenience it can place on homebuyers. There are other good reasons to deliver to cluster boxes. Cluster boxes cut the cost to $160 per address annually. Put another way, door-to-door delivery costs about $353 a year per address, while curbside delivery runs $224.
And because letter carriers can deliver to more mailboxes when they are clustered – or fewer carriers are needed to deliver the same amount of mail – it’s saving money on salaries, too.Īccording to the USPS, at roughly $30 billion annually, delivering mail is the largest single fixed-cost the service incurs. Postal Service (USPS) is now requiring builders and developers to purchase and install kiosks holding a cluster of individual mail boxes.īy delivering mail to kiosks, instead of door-to-door or even individual street-side mailboxes, the postal service is saving money on gasoline and wear-and-tear on USPS vehicles.
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