Some homeowners left longing for door-to-door mail service

The personal mailbox is the latest casualty of suburban sprawl.

Nationwide, the U.S. Postal Service increasingly is delivering mail to communal cluster boxes as a way to keep pace with booming residential growth while controlling labor costs. The new strategy, aimed at new developments in fast-growing areas, saves time and money for the postal service. "Instead of going from door to door, from lawn to lawn, from driveway to driveway, we have a central location," said Luvenia Hyson, a postal service regional spokeswoman.

But many residents and developers say cluster boxes — traditionally reserved for apartments and townhouses, not single-family homes — are impersonal, inconvenient and downright ugly.

Mia Hall just moved into her dream house, a $525,000 five-bedroom colonial in Maryland featuring a gourmet kitchen and twin fireplaces.

At the edge of her manicured front lawn, however, something's missing: a mailbox. Hall, 37, a government employee who lives with her husband and two children, walks each day from her cul-de-sac to retrieve her mail from a locked steel box.

Hers is slot No. 13 — "lucky 13," she said, dejected.

"When I walk down there, I think, 'Jeez, this is a long walk.' It would complete our home if we had a nice mailbox out front."

Battle lines drawn

The National Association of Home Builders is lobbying against the communal delivery system. A.J. Holliday, a lawyer for the Washington-based interest group, called the new postal strategy "discrimination" against people buying new homes.

"The post office has set up a separate class, and they've created new residential construction as a separate class," he said.

The postal service adds about 2 million addresses each year nationwide, spokeswoman Yvonne Yoerger said, noting that cluster boxes are popular among some residents because they help protect against identity theft.

"Your curb box is open to anyone, but with the cluster boxes, they are secured and you have to have a key," Hyson said.

That doesn't make communal mail delivery OK, according to the National Association of Letter Carriers. "Our position is that where the postal patron requests curbside delivery, we believe that they should have curbside delivery," union president William Young said through a spokesman. But "every new delivery point that is being opened up, the postal service is looking at using cluster boxes."

In Leesburg, Va., the postal service wants to institute communal mail delivery in new developments. "We have a couple of new (subdivisions) going in now. I'm trying to convince them to do it," Leesburg post office supervisor Mary Bodolay said. She tells home builders, "We'll buy the mailboxes, and all you have to do is pour the pad and find the location."

Boxes for some, clusters for others

Hall said she learned about the communal mail delivery only after she moved into her home. The houses in the first phase of her development have different mail service. "They get mailboxes and we don't," Hall said.

Carole Oates, sales representative for the subdivision, said the postal service refused a request to deliver mail individually there. "That's what we preferred and lobbied for to no avail," Oates said. "Aesthetically, we think it looks better."

The postal service said it does not mandate that all new subdivisions use cluster boxes.

"It's something that we try to implement when we can by having some kind of dialogue with the builder and getting the builder to understand that we may want to put in the cluster boxes for various reasons," Hyson said.

But Oates said: "When you go home, would you rather pick up your own mail in your driveway or ride down to the corner somewhere? It's a no-brainer."