Ordinance could ban parking by mailbox clusters

If you live in a dense Hillsboro neighborhood, maybe you’ve seen it: a Post Office employee walking mail down the street to a cluster of mailboxes, because someone else parked beside them. If this happens enough, the Postal Service eventually stops delivering mail to neighborhoods altogether.

Hillsboro City Council is looking to change this, by amending its parking ordinance to ban parking within 11 feet of a curbside mailbox cluster between 8AM and 6PM on all days the mail is delivered.

“This originated as a result of a number of large complexes with group boxes where we were not longer getting deliveries after repeated problems,” said Tina Baily, Transportation Program Manager for the City of Hillsboro. “There is nothing at the state level that prohibits parking in front of mailboxes, so we suggested this in locations with really high density parking.”

The postal service will be putting stickers on mail boxes. If this doesn’t stop people from parking by particularly mailboxes, curbs will be painted yellow, and eventually tickets will be given out by city policy officers.

The ordinance passed first reading during City Council’s June 6 meeting; second reading is June 20. If approved, the ordinance will take effect 30 days later. Here’s the full text of the ordinance, if you’re curious.