BOYER CALLS FOR SHORTER ADDRESSES : LANDMARKS HARD TO FIND.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

City Councilman Carl Boyer has lived in this valley for three decades, and the street address system has always bothered him because it is based on the community's distance from Los Angeles.

On this week's City Council agenda, Boyer's pet peeve - last addressed in 1990 - resurfaced, this time tied into an impending change of the 805 area code. Discussion of the street address matter was postponed until July 8, however, because Tuesday night's council meeting was running long, Boyer said.

In a report to the board, Boyer argues that five-digit addresses are too cumbersome and confusing, and that homes and businesses within the Santa Clarita city limits should have three-digit addresses.

``City residents will know they live in the city. County residents will know they live in the county,'' Boyer's report states, indicating the shorter addresses could enhance community identity.

The city could choose a central point in Santa Clarita and have street numbers radiate north, east, west or south, he added.

The councilman said that, as vacant land is developed with homes or businesses, the shorter numbering system could be introduced - and existing addresses could gradually switch over to the new format. The city could develop new street signs that list the street name and the block number, he added.

``Prior to 1950, we had our own street numbering system and the county just arbitrarily changed it,'' Boyer said.

Five-digit addresses, he added, ``don't make any sense to people here. If you give somebody a common address - like City Hall or the mall or the hospital - they don't know where that is.''

The topic last came up seven years ago, when Boyer's proposal to divorce city addresses from the Los Angeles County-issued five-digit system was voted down by the City Council. At that time, Boyer argued that it was ``difficult to relate to a number system that begins in downtown Los Angeles.''

His colleagues argued that changing the numbering system would be complicated, inconvenient and costly to residents and businesses. Addresses would jump quickly from three digits to five near city boundaries with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.

Residents would have to change their addresses on driver licenses, voter registration, bank accounts, credit cards and utility bills. Businesses would have to change their addresses on envelopes, cards and letterhead. And the postal service would have to learn the new system to ensure uninterrupted mail delivery.

A U.S. Postal Service spokesman, during the 1990 debate over the subject, said postal clerks and letter carriers would have to keep track of old addresses and their counterparts in the new numbering system to ensure that mail would reach its destination regardless of which address it bears.

Boyer, 59, has been on the City Council since Santa Clarita was incorporated 10 years ago. He said that, in his 10 years in office, he has had only ``five or six'' complaints about the city's address system.

Still, he believes that five-digit addresses are hard to read on the sides of buildings as one is driving to a destination, and businesses routinely field phone calls from customers wanting directions to get there.

The absence of block numbers on many street signs and the small size of addresses on businesses makes it even harder to find where you're going, Boyer said.

So why not just buy new city street signs and encourage businesses to display their addresses more prominently? Boyer said he can't, in good conscience, endorse that strategy because he finds the whole five-digit numbering system objectionable.

``If we're going to invest money in street signs that have block numbers on them, we ought to straighten up the street numbering system first,'' the councilman said.

Separating from L.A.

It's only a matter of time, he added, until the Santa Clarita Valley breaks away to form its own county. ``I want to get the heck out of Los Angeles County,'' he said, noting it's been 90 years since a new county - Imperial County in 1907 - was formed in California, and it's high time for a new one.

Why not, Boyer argues, get started with a transition he believes is inevitable sooner rather than later? ``I think the time to do it is now, when the valley is not as built up,'' he said. That would mean fewer streets to rename within the city's 45-square-mile boundaries.

The Santa Clarita Valley likely will lose its 805 area code and have to switch over to a new one in 1999. That would be a good time, Boyer added, to begin shortening city addresses. ``When I discovered that the 805 area code numbers were running out, I started thinking about this,'' he said.

``I don't intend to (pursue the change) if we don't have an area code change,'' Boyer said. ``If the phone company decides that they're not going to change the area code, then I'm willing to let sleeping dogs lie a little while longer.''

Addresses are based on survey records, tract maps, subdivisions, deeds and other data kept by the county Department of Public Works, said John Anderson of the Mapping and Property Management Division of the Public Works Department.

``The addresses were established by the county, and my guess is they needed that number of digits to accommodate the geographic expanse of the area,'' Anderson said.

Having three-digit addresses wouldn't work well on long streets because they only provide enough addresses for nine blocks in each direction from the center point, Anderson said. ``I don't see how they could do it,'' he said.

``But they're incorporated now, so by ordinance (the city government) can do what they want to do,'' Anderson said.

Boyer's pre-Santa Clarita roots might explain why five-digit addresses are such an annoyance to him.

When he lived in Wallingford, Pa. - where the current population is 13,000 and the community is only 4.6 square miles - Boyer had a two-digit address.