![Jerry Patterson, left, and Robert Stahl moved into their homes in a new East Milton development, The Preserve, less than a year ago aware there is a problem with mail delivery. As of Nov. 27, they still need to pick up their mail from the post office. [AARON LITTLE | Press Gazette]](http://127.0.0.1/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ghows-DA-5f0d5d7f-791a-65aa-e053-0100007fe6de-83940495-scaled.jpeg)
MILTON — Jerry Patterson and Robert Stahl are residents in a new East Milton neighborhood called The Preserve.
A disagreement between the developer and the United States Postal Service has left them and their neighbors on Majestic Cypress Drive without mail delivery. However, some residents of Red Oak Drive in The Preserve are receiving door-to-door delivery.
The disagreement began, according to developer Mike Stovall with Bay Pointe Homes, when he found out the USPS would require cluster box unit delivery instead of delivery to individual mailboxes. A cluster box unit is a single box designed to receive mail and packages for several addresses.
"The postmaster first met with me on July 12, 2016, at which time he offered to put the CBUs in at USPS's expense," Stovall wrote in an email. "I was not a fan but agreed to [this] under the circumstances."
Between July of 2016 and March of 2017, Stovall says he believed the USPS would pay for these CBUs and so he sold out the Preserve lots.
Then Stovall found out from the USPS Gulf Atlantic District manager the USPS would not pay for the CBUs and would require the neighborhood to have 12 to 16 boxes to serve current and future residents. In the same message, he found out residents of a portion of Red Oak Drive would receive mail curbside, but not Majestic Cypress Drive.
"They would probably cost somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000," Stovall said.
Had he known about the cost during the construction phase, Stovall said he could have included the cost of the CBUs into the price of the lots.
The USPS never offered to purchase the units, according to Kanickewa Johnson, Strategic Communications Specialist Gulf Atlantic/Houston Districts of the USPS.
Stovall should have known in 2016 he needed to purchase the units, according to Johnson.
The USPS began moving to CBUs in April of 2012, according to Johnson.
"At roughly $30 billion annually, delivering mail to 156 million delivery points in the United States is the largest, single fixed cost we incur," Johnson wrote in an email. "The Postal Service has determined that centralized delivery is the most efficient, cost-effective and safest method of providing service to our customers."
"There is no motivation for us to ignore the postal situation," Stovall said.
Meanwhile, the Pattersons and Stahl have to use the post office to pick up their mail and several delivery services don’t recognize their street address.
Patterson said his wife goes to the post office to get the mail on her lunch break, sometimes to find only junk mail.
Stahl, a retired Marine, doesn’t get off work until 5 p.m., the same time the Milton post office closes.
"I can only get mail Saturdays," Stahl said. "I had some medicines mailed by the (Veterans Affairs Hospital) but I couldn’t pick them up during the day. I had to wait a whole week to get (them).
"I don’t know whose fault this is but we’re the ones in the middle paying the price."
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: 'We're the ones … paying the price'