The Henderson City Commission will vote on an ordinance change that would allow addresses to be assigned to residences at the preliminary plat stage of the building process.
The proposal came after Manuel Ball, who manages land development for Jagoe Homes, spoke to the city commission on Tuesday and said that assigning addresses to residences with the preliminary plat approval would jump-start getting people into homes.
Currently addresses are assigned after the final plat approval in Henderson and Henderson County.
Henderson Mayor Brad Staton said the change would be an option for builders and that they could still choose to get addresses assigned with the final plat approval.
Jagoe is currently building a 300-plus residence subdivision called Bentley Point behind Walmart. Ball said that if addresses could have been assigned to residences in Bentley Point at the preliminary plat stage, then “in reality, we would have been able to start building 45 days ago.”
He said assigning addresses earlier also helps the homebuyer because a lender will only proceed with the home buying process so much without an address. Ball said an earlier date allows for buyers to lock in interest rates.
Some concern arose among Henderson officials over having addresses assigned with the preliminary plat because as work is being done, there is the possibility of emergencies occurring and no clearly marked address—at a parcel of land with no structure yet on it—and no marked roads. They said that could cause confusion for emergency responders if an incident occurred.
City and local planning officials are working to put a revised proposal in place. Brian Bishop, the executive director of the Henderson-Henderson County Joint Planning Commission, said he’ll suggest allowing builders to use a preliminary address assigned with the preliminary plat, which would allow the builder and buyer to move forward in the process.
Preliminary addresses would not be shared with 911 Dispatch. That information would be given to the dispatch when official/final addresses are assigned, he said.
Bishop said the official/final address would still be assigned with the approval of the subdivision’s final plat. He said these are his suggestions, but the ordinance changes that come before the city commission could be different. City Attorney Dawn Kelsey is working on the ordinance changes, as well, he said.
Ball told the city commission that Owensboro Municipal Planning Commission already allows builders to get preliminary addresses assigned with the approval of the preliminary plat.
Brian Howard, the executive director of OMPC, said OMPC has been assigning addresses to residences off a preliminary plat for more than 20 years.
From the preliminary plat, addresses, fire codes, utilities and other checks can be assigned and approved, which allows a builder to get a building permit and start construction off the preliminary plat.
“For our purposes, it works fine,” Howard said.
He said all the work of the planning commission is based on addresses, and so a particular address remains in place throughout the process and rarely if ever is changed once a final plat is approved.
He said his office oversees building permitting as well, so the entire process of getting a project off the ground is handled by his staff.
He said he doesn’t recall any instances of a 911 call at a building site being problematic for first responders to get to because the address is already in place, and he didn’t know of any instances when an address needed to change before a final plat is approved.
“There’s no need to change,” he said. “I don’t ever recall that being an issue.”
He said builders in Owensboro appreciate the process in place with OMPC because “they can go ahead and get started earlier.”
