What you need to know about requesting an address or private road name

Requesting an address or private road name

During the development review and construction process, we assign addresses to homes and businesses. Sometimes, however, you may need an additional address on your property, or you may need to name a private road. Some of the situations where you may need a new address or a name for a private road include:

  • Adding a structure to your residential property to house your business
  • Leasing a portion of your business property to another business
  • Installing a septic tank and/or doing percolation (perc) tests on an undeveloped piece of land
  • Emergency responders have trouble locating your address because of an obscure location or duplicate street name

Developers use the Street Name Reservation System

When developers submit a plat for review, it is helpful to County staff (as well as the developer) to have pre-approval for road names. There is a list of criteria used by County staff for naming streets that you can use as a guide when choosing your names. To aide in this process, we have developed a tool that does many of the objective tests for you. The Street Name Reservation System assesses the street names you provide (without suffixes e.g. Street, Road, Lane, Place) and makes sure they follow the guidelines:

  • Must not duplicate an existing name in the database as you have spelled it
  • Must not duplicate an existing name on the reserved names list as you have spelled it
  • Must not exceed 18 characters in length
  • Is not a single character in length
  • Must not contain special characters
  • Must not contain numbers
  • Is not inappropriate or offensive
  • Is not a street name that was previously denied for other reasons

Getting your plats’ street names approved during the Preliminary phase allows them to be used on Construction and Final plat drawings which speeds up the time in which addresses can be assigned. Platting and permitting benefit greatly from having street names reserved early in the process.

Please refer to the User Guide found in the top navigation menu for the Reservation System for help navigating the Street Name Reservation site.

Special circumstances for septic tanks and perc tests

Although we are responsible for land development permits, the Health Department issues permits for septic tank and/or a perc tests. However, you should contact us first, so that you will have an address to provide on your application for the permit.

Things you will need before requesting an address

  • Property ID Number (PIN) or Folio Number associated with the property
  • Site plan depicting the layout of and the access to the structure on the property

Why would I get a name for a private road?

To eliminate potential delays or confusion for emergency responses caused by obscure structure locations, duplicate street names or other conditions, we allow residents and businesses to request a name for a private road.

How to get a name for a private road

  1. Call our Street & Address unit to discuss the criteria for naming
  2. Collect signatures of nearby property owners and other affected parties
  3. We will screen the name to assure emergency response is not hindered by:
    • The use of duplicate street names
    • Street names that sound alike
    • Street names that might not be easily pronounced

Contact

For more information on street names and addresses call (813) 744-5862.

Last Modified: 11/20/2023, 4:05:47 PM

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