Street Sign Maintenance Request

Lancaster County Street Addresses Explained

With the implementation of Enhanced 911 emergency telephone service, Lancaster County has established an addressing system which identifies all occupied structures in the county by house or building number and street name. For those individuals and businesses who are provided rural carrier delivery service by the United States Postal Service, this location identification also serves as the mailing address.

Road names are given to all state maintained roads in the county and all subdivision and private roads which serve three or more occupied structures. The majority of the road names currently in use were assigned in 1993 by a ten-member citizen committee appointed by the Board of Supervisors.

House numbers are generated by a computer program that assigns one number for each 5.28 feet of road frontage with even numbers on the right hand side of the road and odd numbers on the left side of the road. The starting point for the address range for each road is "1".

Buildings within the town limits of Kilmarnock are addressed according to a scheme which pre-dates Lancaster County's E-911 implementation. Therefore, addresses for buildings in the town of Kilmarnock are assigned at the town office.

Numbers for new homes and businesses are created by county staff during the building permit application process. A Street Address Request Form must be filled out and submitted with the building permit application.

All building numbers must be posted on the building or at the driveway entrance if the building is not visible from the road. Numbers must be at least three inches high.

Street Sign Vandalism

Theft and vandalism of highway marking signs continues to be a source of great concern to Lancaster County law enforcement and emergency response personnel. This is particularly true of street name identification signs.

According to the Lancaster County Code of Ordinances, willful and malicious damage to public property is a class 1 misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up $2,500 and/or up to 12 months in jail.

Anyone with information regarding vandalism to or theft of County-maintained street signs is encouraged to contact the County Administration office at (804) 462-5129 or e-mail Glenn D. Rowe.

Other street sign problems can be reported via email.

County Mapping Products

The following maps and GIS map layers can be obtained free of charge from the "Downloads" section elsewhere on this page:

• Complete Parcel Map Book - PDF format, full print size is 24" X 36". Can be printed at smaller paper sizes, but much detail will be lost. All map sheets merged into a single file.
• Lancaster County Road Map - All named public, private and subdivision roads along with an alphabetical street name index. PDF format, full print size is 36" X 64".
• Parcel GIS layer - ESRI Shapefile format. Individual files compressed into a single ZIP file for easy donwloading.
• Parcel Database - Excel spreasheet. Includes property owner, tax assessment, property description and transfer information. Advanced users will be able to append this data to the parcel shapefile by joining on the "Account" field.
• Road Centerline GIS layer - ESRI Shapefile format. Individual files compressed into a single ZIP file for easy donwloading.

The maps and GIS layers listed above can be burned onto a CD for those who have slow internet connections or any other difficulty downloading large data files. The cost will be $25 per CD.

Custom maps can be printed upon request for $5 per page. Under this option, customers can specify particular areas of the county to be printed and select from various paper sizes and data layers.

Lancaster County maps and GIS layers are subject to an End User Agreement.

Contact Glenn D. Rowe for information on the map products described above.