Mailbox battles with USPS delay major developments in Triad

In 2012, the US Postal Service began mandating that all new housing developments use cluster box units (CBUs) rather than individual mailboxes. According to Kim Phillips, regulatory affairs director for the Triad Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition (TREBIC), this new requirement, which wasn’t enforced in the Triad area until 2014, has created major headaches for property developers.

While USPS does provide an online guide for developers, according to Phillips, coordinating with USPS has been difficult. This has been the experience of many developers when trying to work with USPS growth managers, who implement additional guidelines, such as awnings and regulations regarding lighting and location, as well as arbitrary mandates about the quantity of CBUs in a development. 

A 2015 memo from the North Carolina Department of Transportation outlines the policy for the placement of CBUs in subdivisions, including location specifications. According to the memo, the policy is written “with consideration” to USPS guidelines. 

“What the Postal Service has done is create a two-tiered class of citizenry,” Brad Coe, developer of single-family subdivisions, told the Carolina Journal. “Owners of homes built before 2012, when these policies were rolled out, receive door-to-door delivery of letters and packages. While customers in suburban areas get their own mailboxes, they receive lower service while paying the same rates for USPS service.” 

Developers and builders often face challenges obtaining approval for CBU locations, according to Phillips. At the same time, growth managers are implementing mandates, such as limiting the number of CBU locations in a development. In larger communities, if there are hundreds of residents all descending on the same location after work to get their mail, it creates traffic and safety issues, according to Phillips.

She said not allowing multiple CBU locations to be spread throughout the development also eliminates the convenience of being able to walk a block or less to get the mail. USPS growth managers frequently add additional hurdles for developers by requiring certain lighting, awnings, and extra parking for mail carriers at CBU locations. 

Growth developers are not following USPS guidelines, which causes problems for developers when a location cannot be agreed upon, often needlessly delaying major projects, according to Phillips.

“There’s no uniformity; the local postmasters have not been given clear direction on how to deal with these things,” said Coe, echoing Phillips’ concerns. “They’ve left something apparently open to interpretation to them, and these local postmasters try to make their own rules which may or may not, as you’ve already discovered, be legal, or such as lighting… But you may have local postmasters telling developers and builders that they must do these things. So it varies from post office to post office, and the administration changes in the interim. So you may not get the same interpretation six months from now you did six months ago.” 

Phillips reached out to US Sen. Ted Budd’s, R-NC, office regarding the issue. On Sept. 29, 2025, the USPS sent a letter to Budd’s office responding to Phillips’ inquiry. 

The USPS letter issued clarifications for developers regarding some of these regulations, stating that developers are not required to have awnings, lighting, or dedicated parking for CBUs, and that larger developments may have multiple CBU locations to accommodate resident convenience and carrier efficiency.     

Issues persisted though, and Phillips reached out again to Budd’s office for help. Budd’s office sent an inquiry on behalf of Phillips to the USPS on March 16. Scott Slusher, a government liaison for USPS, responded to Budd’s office in a letter dated April 9, indicating that Phillips or other representatives of TREBIC should direct an appeal or request for direction for guidance by USPS officials to the district manager for the state of North Carolina, Scott Manier. The letter also provided detailed instructions for submitting the appeal. 

The USPS also followed up with Budd’s office on Oct. 14. 

“The Builders Guide, which Mr. Slusher referenced in his letter, contains our policy for the establishment of delivery service for new addresses and the types of mail receptacles the builders should install. It contains separate sections for the types of new homes built—single family, apartment, trailer and mobile home parks, etc.  The Postal Service nationally follows this guide, as should builders and developers. If a builder or developer has an issue with a determination by a USPS official about mailbox types or placement, he/she may address their concerns to the appropriate district officials. Mr. Slusher’s letter included contact information for Ms. Phillips for questions and concerns in North Carolina. We believe that the Builders Guide sufficiently communicates our policy and, as such, we do not plan to publish additional directives, as Ms. Phillips requested.”

On March 11, Phillips again reached out to Budd’s office regarding a lack of response to her appeal to Manier and concerns that developers had continued to report troubling interactions with the growth manager for North Carolina, Jennifer Way. According to Phillips, Way said there is no USPS rulebook and that North Carolina already has “too much development.” Phillips also reached out to US Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC5, regarding the ongoing issues with Way. 

TREBIC has also worked with area Postmaster Blake Denny’s office on district matters, but this issue extends beyond Greensboro and is not confined to a single local office. Despite repeated outreach to USPS officials, including Jennifer Way and Scott Manier, no response has been received, Phillips told Budd’s office in an email.

Phillips told the Carolina Journal that, despite following instructions to direct appeals to Manier, the member has yet to receive a response. 

“We continue to be directed back to the Builder’s Guide, which our members are following,” Phillips told Budd’s office in an email. “The challenge is that USPS staff in the field are not consistently applying those same guidelines. At this point, this does not feel like a sufficient resolution, as it does not address the broader, ongoing issues our members are experiencing. There appears to be a systemic disconnect between the established standards and how they are being implemented. We also should not have to involve members of Congress simply to ensure that existing USPS guidelines are followed.”

According to an email from Phillips to Budd’s office, when Manier receives requests, he passes them back to Way. 

“We followed the attached instructions and sent a detailed packet to Scott Manier due to our difficulties with Ms. Jennifer Way,” a TREBIC member said in an email to Phillips. “I just got a call from Jennifer Way, who said Scott received the packet and forwarded it to her to handle. I requested Scott’s contact information, which is public record, from my understanding, and Jennifer refused to provide it.”

Economists have repeatedly emphasized that the more unnecessary red tape and regulations builders are forced to contend with, the less housing will be built. And the housing that does get built will have additional costs, with Phillips telling CJ that for every $1,000 the price of a home rises, 300 people are priced out of buying one. Coe also emphasized that these delays adversely affect homebuyers economically, adding hundreds of dollars to the final price tag, in a market where keeping homes as affordable as possible is critical.

By time of publication, USPS did not respond to the Carolina Journal’s request for comment.

“Mailbox battles with USPS delay major developments in Triad” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.