Question: In August the U.S. Postal Service notified us of a modification of our street address. It had been 57-101 W. Kuilima Loop, Kahuku 96731, but they eliminated the “W.” and “Loop” and added “Drive,” resulting in a new address of 57-101 Kuilima Drive. However, the street sign still reflects the old address. Who is responsible for putting up a new sign?

Answer: The street is privately owned, so it would be up to the homeowners association to change the sign.

But this is not a simple situation involving just a street sign. Instead it revolves around an address change that was not requested, nor necessary, in the minds of many members of the Kui-lima Estates West Association, a North Shore community of 200 homes all sharing the “new” 57-101 Kuilima Drive address.

The name will stand unless the association petitions the city to reinstate the former name.

“The confusion and inconvenience caused by the post office has caused much annoyance and confusion to our residents,” said association President Gena Whitten. However, “it seems we are stuck with a new address, which we did not want and which is causing much confusion” because “the process is too onerous and probably impossible to achieve with 200 owners.”

The situation is confusing because the “new” address isn’t new — it was just not used for more than 40 years.

It’s taken us months to figure out what happened, with the help of the city Department of Planning and Permitting digging through its records.

Initially, the Postal Service told us it was because of a request by DPP that West Kuilima Loop was changed to Kuilima Drive. However, DPP said it never made such a request — it just provided information.

After further checking, USPS spokesman Duke Gonzales acknowledged the change is the result of the Laie postmaster “undertaking a belated effort to align our USPS addressing system with the official addresses at (Kuilima Estates West) as recorded by the city.”

The Postal Service’s policy is to follow the city’s lead in determining correct mailing addresses, he said. “But for some reasons unknown to us now, this was not done” for Kuilima Estates West.

So although the street is officially Kuilima Drive, “sometime in the past our Kahuku Post Office (which formerly handled mail delivery to Kuilima Estates West) accepted and sent on to our central addressing office in Honolulu (the) addresses identified as ‘Loop’ and ‘Drive,’” he said.

When mail delivery was relocated to Laie, the postmaster realized the West Loop address did not match the city’s records, and “she acted quickly to get things in alignment,” Gonzales said.

The Background

Art Challacombe, deputy director for Planning and Permitting, explained that Kuilima Drive was named by City Council resolution in 1972. In 1973, by resolution, two streets on the west side of Kuilima Drive were named West Kuilima Loop and West Kuilima Place.

In 1974, also by Council resolution, streets on the east side of Kuilima Drive were named Eleku Kuilima Place, Lalo Kuilima Place and “Lalo Kuilima Way. All the streets, except for Kuilima Drive, were recorded as private roadways.

However, while the streets were named, DPP does not have any records requesting addresses on the west side of Kuilima Drive be changed to West Kuilima Loop and West Kuilima Place.

That is why the registered mailing address on the west side (with individual unit numbers) remained 57-101 Kuilima Drive, Challacombe said.

What Now?

Gonzales said the Laie postmaster felt an urgency to institute the correct address because the Postal Service increasingly is moving to the use of high-speed, automated sorting processes.

“The computerized machines that sort mail automatically reject mail with incorrect addresses,” he said. “Thus, the use of correct addresses is essential to ensure consistently prompt and accurate mail delivery to our customers.”

The association can file a request to have its addresses officially changed to “Loop” and “Place.”

The request has to be in writing from the association, not individual homeowners, accompanied by a site map of the entire subdivision with proposed addresses for each unit, Challacombe said. “They must have 100 percent agreement of all owners,” he said.

“If they follow up on this option and the city adopts those changes, we will update our USPS addressing system to reflect that change,” Gonzales said. Otherwise, “Now that we are in alignment with the city, we want to stay that way.”

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