BUCKLAND — Should Buckland merge its four ZIP codes into one?

Town officials are beginning a review of the town’s ZIP codes — 01338 (Buckland), 01330 (Ashfield), 01339 (Charlemont) and 01370 (Shelburne Falls) — and whether it would be beneficial to consolidate them into one.

“There is not a day that goes by that we don’t have to solve a problem or help a resident because of the use of multiple ZIP codes in town,” Town Clerk Alicia Graves said.

Graves said Buckland’s review was inspired by the town of Whately, which is working to consolidate its four ZIP codes into a single ZIP code, 01093. She said that many of the same ZIP code-related issues reported by Whately residents have also been experienced by those in Buckland. Examples of issues experienced by Whately in recent years include packages delivered to a corresponding address in Deerfield and dozens of Deerfield excise tax bills ending up in Whately. Emergency responses are also sometimes twisted up in ZIP codes.

The process has been undertaken by other towns in Franklin County as well, with Leverett consolidating four ZIP codes into 01054 in 2003.

Buckland residents having ZIP codes that correspond to other towns has led to challenges with excise tax bills, voter registration, the federal census, inaccuracies in town statistics and vital records, mail delivery, and emergency responses from police and fire, among others, Graves said.

“Having all these ZIP codes makes it difficult,” Graves said. “Everything says they live in Shelburne Falls, Charlemont or Ashfield.”

ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) codes were developed by the U.S. Postal Service and introduced in July 1963 as a way to make mail delivery easier. As an internal system to help USPS manage more than 160 million mailing addresses, ZIP codes are not bound by town borders and are designed with efficiency and costs in mind, according to a USPS spokesperson.

Because codes do not always match town borders, “Your house may be in Buckland, but your ZIP code might say Charlemont, Ashfield, Shelburne Falls or maybe even Buckland,” Graves said.

While Graves and other Town Hall employees have heard from some residents and experienced their own challenges with ZIP codes, the town wants to hear from the greater Buckland community.

Graves said that following the Selectboard’s approval to proceed with public outreach and research last week, the town created an email account dedicated to the ZIP code project, and residents are invited to send in testimony, questions or concerns about their current ZIP code challenges, as well as their thoughts on if changing the town’s ZIP codes would be helpful or hurtful. She is unsure how long this initial research and public input period will last, as the town wants to be thorough in its considerations, but not take an unnecessarily long time.

“This is the very early stages of this exploration,” Graves said. “We don’t want to rush through it, but we don’t want to drag our feet.”

Graves said the town is currently in the “discovery phase, trying to determine the depth and the breadth of issues that arise because of the multiple ZIP codes, and what impact the issues have on the residents of Buckland and the town as a whole.”

“We also want to gather feedback from residents to understand additional issues we haven’t considered, understand their concerns and try to determine how many people in town this impacts,” she said.

If the public seems supportive of a ZIP code consolidation, Graves said town officials will move forward with research and planning to determine what steps need to be taken to make it happen.

Residents can send their comments, questions or concerns about Buckland’s ZIP codes to zipcode@town.buckland.ma.us.

Reach Madison Schofield at
413-930-4579.