For over a decade the Town and Country Planning Department has been working feverishly to develop a National Address System in the Virgin Island, but is faced with the challenge of not having total coverage of street names for properties in the Territory to begin the project.

The system will serve to design and establish a reliable and consistent system of assigning unique addresses to buildings and properties within several areas.

After several attempts to create a street naming committee proved futile, the project is now in the interim of adding proposed names using the area names of the different cadastral sections.  

This aids in proper identification of streets when adding intervals or quality checking of buildings and addresses. These will be tabulated and sent to the House of Assembly for approval.

However, no official would comment on the slow pace of the exercise.

The (NAS) in the VI will provide every property in the Territory with a unique geographic and numeric address. The address will comprise of a unique number for each property running along each street.

Currently, with no legislation to support the NAS, the policy is still in draft and has not been accepted into the Legislative Council.  The goal of the policy is to provide a complete set of addresses, so that persons including emergency victims can be located with greatest efficiency. 

The standard of street names selection is presently in at a draft policy stage, which will aid the department of this process. The Standpoint understands that upon forming the naming committee, the selected names will be submitted to the Executive Council for approval. The draft policy will be used during this process.

The Town and Country Planning Department has been developing the National Addressing System (NAS) and the Postal Codes in an effort to establish addresses and facilitate the timely and efficient service of the Post Office and other mail couriers.

With an aim to provide a complete set of addresses, the use of the postal codes would be more effective as it would facilitate home delivery of mail and aid in the modernization of the services offered, officials acknowledged.

House numbering and street addresses

Problems of locating buildings, persons, places and things exist while delivery services, both locally and internationally are increasing rapidly in the VI.

However, the postal service continues to distribute mail at the window or via postal mailboxes.

Without NAS, home delivery service is impossible. Messages are difficult to deliver because addresses are difficult to describe or find. Utility companies and emergency agencies welcome the day when addresses will be posted on each house and a street map and address directory shows every property so as to help them with locating their customers and with dealing with repairs or complaints efficiently. It will provide a basis for the development of sub-systems which can automatically generate specific, reliable directions for drivers from any starting location to any destination (Navigation systems). The system will also improve the efficiency of statistics and data collection, such as the next census, officials have long argued.

According to a release from the GIS, the VI Government is relatively modern and through the years a system of roads has made their mark. Many roads are unnamed or ill defined and properties have gone without addresses.

Because of the cultural layout of the Territory, people locate each other by a family reference, local landmarks and fuzzy directions.

The NAS is a national system based on the Lyman method where each street must be named and numbered based on regular intervals. The odd numbers are on the right and the even numbers are on the left. The numbers progress from West to East and South to North.  The addressing system will be presented in the form of street maps and an address directory.

This project once completed will contain the names and addresses of all properties as delineated by the department.

The criteria for the selection of street names includes: Well-known persons, historical sites/ events, national trees and flowers.

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