Request By:
Honorable Roger D. Vanover
Attorney at Law
107 West Walnut Street
Nicholasville, Kentucky 40356
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of May 19 in which you, on behalf of the City of Nicholasville's Planning and Zoning Commission, relate that said commission has asked the local federal postal authorities to become involved in the designation of street addresses for certain areas of the city, however, they have refused to participate presumably for lack of jurisdiction. Under the circumstances, you raise the following questions:
"1. In the absence of an ordinance, does the city of Nicholasville Planning and Zoning Commission have the authority to designate street addresses for development within the city limits?
"2. Can the City of Nicholasville, after passage of an ordinance, assume authority to designate street addresses for development within the city limits?
"3. With or without an ordinance which purports to assume the authority to designate street addresses within the city limits, does the city assume any liability to the federal government or to an individual citizen relative to these assignments of addresses in the event any mail is lost, misplaced, or disrupted? "
In response to your questions, we believe that the city legislative body has the sole authority to designate not only the names of the various streets but also the numbering of the buildings and houses located thereon. KRS 94.360 vests in the city legislative body exclusive control of its public streets which, as pointed out in McQuillin, Mun. Corps., Vol. 10, § 30.14, gives the legislative body the vested power to name its streets and also adopt a system of numbers pertaining to the buildings and houses situated thereon. The only exception to the rule appears to involve the name of streets where a restriction contained in a deed of conveyance to the city provides otherwise. Quoted from the text of McQuillin cited above you will note the following:
". . . In the absence of any such restrictions, however, the renaming of streets is within the discretion of the municipal authorities; and the same is true as to the establishment or change of a system of numbers appertaining to streets or blocks, or to buildings or houses therein situated. A change in the name of a street does not alter the boundaries or location of the street.
"Charters often confer express power 'to provide for naming streets and numbering houses.' . . ." [Emphasis added.]
We might also point out that in addition to the basic authority found in KRS 94.360 and the text of McQuillin cited above, the home rule power given to cities by Senate Bill 41 enacted at the 1980 Regular Session of the General Assembly and coded as KRS 82.082(1) and (2) which read as follows:
"(1) A city may exercise any power and perform any function within its boundaries, including the power of eminent domain in accordance with the provisions of the Eminent Domain Act of Kentucky, that is in furtherance of a public purpose of the city and not in conflict with a constitutional provision or statute.
"(2) A power or function is in conflict with a statute if it is expressly prohibited by a statute or there is a comprehensive scheme of legislation on the same general subject embodied in the Kentucky Revised Statutes including, but not limited to, the provisions of Chapters 95 and 96."
The above Home Rule Act becomes effective July 15, 1980.
Thus, in answer to your specific questions, the city may designate street addresses but such must be by an appropriate ordinance. Also, the fact that this power is vested in the city legislative body would appear to relieve it of any liability in so far as the federal government or the individual property owner is concerned, in the event any mail is lost or misplaced, or service is disrupted.