Municipal Addressing

1. That the intersection at King St. and James St. shall be deemed the Directional Starting Point for the purpose of municipal addressing on arterial and collector roads. The Directional Starting Point will be followed, where possible, and the streets will be numbered outwardly towards the city of Hamilton boundary.
2. That one address shall be assigned per legal lot of record, except where otherwise permitted in this policy.
3. That the addressing of local streets shall start from the Arterial, Collector, or closest major road.
4. That the right hand side of a street shall be assigned “Even” numbers (beginning with ‘4’), and the left side of the street shall be assigned “Odd” numbers (beginning with ‘3’).
5. That a default space for numbering shall be incrementing odd or even numbers for every  20 feet (6 m) of frontage (ex.,  4, 6, 8, 10, or 3, 5, 7, 9).
6. That an area with an established numbering pattern shall continue to use that numbering pattern.
7. That cul-de-sacs shall be addressed with the lowest numbers starting at the intersection; except that addressing shall be continuous when a “Court” and “Street” have the same name and intersect with each other.
8. That a municipal address shall be assigned to the legal lot frontage determined by the Zoning By-law (link to page) on corner lots.
9. That more than one municipal address may be assigned for use by tenants or additional buildings erected on one parcel of land, if available, and without requiring a change to the addresses of adjacent properties.
10. It is not the policy to avoid any particular number for any reason such as 13, 44, 69 or 666. It is not the policy to assign “rounded-off” municipal numbers such as 50, 400, 555 and 1000.
11. That only whole numbers are to be assigned to establish a separate identity for each building. If necessary, and renumbering of surrounding buildings is not an option, half numbers shall be used. The use of letters for separate buildings shall not be used, such as 5A, 5B or 5C.
12. That addresses will not be assigned to vacant or severed lands until such time as an application for a building permit has been submitted or the conditions of the approved severance application have been completely fulfilled. In cases where the approval of a consent application creates a situation where the original address now falls out of sequence from the newly created lots, it will have to be renumbered through the request form.

For assigning new municipal addresses within a new development in Hamilton:

• Single family dwellings - That dwellings will be numbered by increments of four’s
• Semi-detached dwellings - That each dwelling will be numbered by increments of two’s with an interval of two between buildings.
• Street townhomes - That each dwelling will be numbered by increments of two’s with an interval of two between buildings.
• Quadraplex street townhomes - That the individual dwellings be addressed consecutively based on the location of the driveway frontage.
• Condominium townhouse, commercial or industrial blocks - That one municipal address be assigned to the Main access driveway for the Condominium Blocks. It is the developer’s responsibility to assign unit numbers for each Condominium unit.
• Apartment buildings - That one address per apartment building be assigned, and the owner assigns the individual unit numbers as required.
• Commercial, industrial and institutional sites - That one address be assigned per property, unless it is required to avoid confusion with multiple buildings on a site.
• City parkland - That parkland properties be addressed based on the location of buildings, structures, parking areas, splash-pads, or playground areas.
• Utilities - That addresses be assigned to utility facilities for reference purposes in the event of an emergency situation, and a request form has been submitted.

For assigning new municipal addresses within the rural area of Hamilton:

• Agricultural land - That more than one address may be given to a property where there is a second dwelling or large accessory buildings.
• Other development - For commercial, industrial, institutional, and parkland properties, please refer to the policies for new development.
• 911 rural numbering signs - By-law No. 02-312 deals with the procedures and placement for the green coloured 911 rural numbering signs.