Addressing
History
In 1980, in a joint project with US West, Clear Creek County assigned rural addresses to all structures in the county to help locate people in the event of an emergency. Staff from US West assigned addresses to all structures through an extensive field and office project and provided this information to the county for future maintenance. The program was administered through the Building Department through 1987 when it was transferred to the Mapping Department.
In 1987, a large-scale project to update the rural address information was undertaken in conjunction with the Assessor's Office to improve the quality of the data through an exercise that matched the rural addresses with improved properties according to the assessment records. A database was created with address information and its accuracy has improved through time. The database has been recently been incorporated into the assessor's property records to provide more location information in the property appraisal process.
Program Description
The county's rural addressing system is a mileage-based system. This means that addresses are assigned to a building based on the distance a driveway comes off of an addressable road, as measured from its point of beginning.
In the event an emergency response, dispatch will use this addressing information to locate the scene of an incident. The concept of a mileage-based addressing system allows emergency response vehicles to locate driveway locations in the dark based on the odometer readings on their vehicles. This logical system is intended to assist users of the system.