'Whitchurch-Stouffville' mailing addresses changing

Yorkregion.com
Aug. 3, 2016
By Ali Raza

Make sure to have your mail and parcels addressed to you with the full name “Whitchurch-Stouffville”.

Town council chose “Whitchurch-Stouffville” as the official municipal name for mailing addresses with Canada Post at a special council meeting on Tuesday.

The decision came after Canada Post told the town in April that it was undertaking an initiative for the municipality to create a unified postal code and name for the whole municipality to improve accurate delivery. Whitchurch-Stouffville residents have a variety of names in their addresses currently, including Stouffville, Newmarket and Gormley.

All postal codes within the municipality will begin with “L4A”, which Stouffville addresses already begin with.

Staff requested council to confirm whether Canada Post’s municipal name for the town be “Stouffville” or “Whitchurch-Stouffville” to which council chose the latter.

“So a letter addressed to Timbuktu with a Ballantrae postal code will get to Ballantrae?” Councillor Ken Ferdinands asked Canada Post during the meeting.

“It should,” replied Canada Post manager of municipal engagement Andy Paterson.

“The only thing that’s changing is where the delivery driver starts from,” Paterson told council. “From a customer’s perspective, nothing’s going to change.”

The changes do not affect the official names of the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville or the community of Stouffville, the meeting was told. In 1971, the town of Whitchurch-Stouffville was incorporated, combining the former townships of Whitchurch and Stouffville.

As the communities of Cedar Valley and Gormley have their own post offices, numerous calls from residents, including a call from Markham-Stouffville MP Jane Philpott, were made to Canada Post requesting Cedar Valley and Gormley still be used on addresses.

Canada Post will retain the names as secondary or alternate identifiers, like Streetsville for Mississauga or North York for Toronto, but the postal code change will still be in effect.

Some addresses in the municipality have rural postal codes as they were located on RR3 Newmarket. Canada Post is updating rural postal codes with the new “L4A” designation and will phase out postal codes ending in “7X3”, “7X4” and “7X5”.

Residents within municipal boundaries using “Newmarket” as their municipal name (as part of RR3 Newmarket) will be changed to Whitchurch-Stouffville and will also be given an “L4A” postal code. The rural service code in Newmarket is to be removed.

Residents affected by the name and postal code change will be offered a free change of address service from Canada Post for a year.

Canada Post contacted the town on April 20 about the upcoming changes but did not provide an implementation date. Soon after, affected residents began to receive notices of the change taking place on Aug. 15 and contacted the town.

Canada Post’s manager of municipal engagement acknowledged a lack of communications and consultation with the town regarding the changes, the municipality said in its report to council this week.