E911 Street Naming Process

Name or Rename a Street

1. Submit an E911 Addressing Request Form to the City E911 Coordinator. The form must be submitted by the Property Owner or their designee. For condominium developments, an Association President or their designee must submit the form. Please email or call the Coordinator with any general questions. This form is online: https://burlingtonvt.viewpointcloud.com/categories/1101/record-types/6714
    
2. The Coordinator has the Authority to Name and Rename Streets. BCO 27-101
    
3. A Street with 3 or More Primary Structures Requires a Name. Otherwise the street is a driveway.
    
4. Street Names Must be Unique within the City. Confusing street names can have disastrous consequences for emergency response at the worst, and dysfunctional delivery service at best. New street names must conform with VT E911 Addressing Standards. NOTE: VT E911 Standards apply to new street names, and does not imply that existing nonconforming names must be changed. Summary:
    
   1. Duplicate street names within the City are not allowed.
       
   2. Duplicate street names with adjacent municipalities are discouraged, especially with those in South Burlington.
       
   3. Homophone names (Flower and Flour) or similar-sounding names (Beach and Peach) are not allowed.
       
   4. Street name suffixes cannot be used to differentiate between separate streets (Maple Street and Maple Lane).
       
   5. Street names cannot include punctuation or special characters, with the exception of dashes.
       
   6. Burlington has over 400 Named Streets currently, both public and private. Certain words have been used multiple times in street names, inviting confusion. Therefore the following words are no longer allowed in new street names. The word cannot be any part of the name:
       

      Adams Alfred Appletree Beach Birch Brook Cherry Colchester Crescent Deforest East Ethan Allen Fair Hill

      King Lake Ledge Locust Moore Mount North Oak Pine Prospect Red River Rock Rose

      Saint South Spruce Staniford Starr Summit Sunset University West Wood

       

5. Renaming Any Street: The Burlington City Charter Title 3 Article 27 requires both Property Owner and City Council Approval as follows:

   The established name of any street in the city shall not be changed by the city council except upon the approval in writing of the owners of the greater part of all property fronting on such street.
    

   1. The Coordinator must first obtain written approval of Owners of the majority of street frontage of the street being renamed.
       
   2. The City Council must then vote to approve the street name change. This includes prior review and a recommendation to approve by the Council's License Committee.
       
6. Address Numbering: Renaming a street does not trigger address renumbering. However if an entire street is being numbered or renumbered, such Address Numbering must conform with VT E911 Standards.
    
7. Adjacent Towns: When naming or re-naming a street near the City's borders, and a street in the area connects the municipalities, it is important to check the neighboring town for duplicate or similar sounding street names (not town wide). Duplicate or similar names will invite confusion on location and should be avoided.