Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman… Eden Area Now Recognized

Ashland, Cherryland, Fairview, and Hayward Acres residents have been telling people where they live for years. Now, the United States Postal Service and two county supervisors have announced that they can also get their mail addressed there. 

“This is a major milestone for our unincorporated communities,” said Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, who represents Castro Valley and several other unincorporated areas in District 4. District 3 Supervisor Lena Tam joined him in pushing for the change. 

Most residents of Castro Valley and San Lorenzo are unaffected. Although they may not be their own city, they do have their own post office, so they get their mail as if, well, they lived there. 

However, some 29,000 residents of the Eden Area didn’t, and so mail had to be addressed to the larger communities of Hayward or San Leandro. People living in some ZIP codes in the communities of Ashland, Cherryland, Hayward Acres, and Fairview, along with smaller numbers of San Lorenzo and Castro Valley residents, were affected. 

It all goes back to when we first got ZIP codes in 1960. 

It was easy enough for the Postal Service to assign ZIP codes to addresses already being served by a city’s post office or post offices, such as residents of Hayward or San Leandro, or most Castro Valley residents. The problem was for people in unincorporated areas, then with a much smaller population, who needed to write the name of a nearby post office in the bottom line of their mailing address. 

As the unincorporated communities of Eden grew over time, this became a nuisance and led to confusion. A few years ago, Alameda County’s Eden Area Livability Initiative looked at fixing this and other local problems. Seeing the need and hearing from frustrated residents, Supervisors Miley and Tam put the issue on their to-do list. 

The county’s Community Development Agency (CDA) conducted a survey and held eight public meetings to determine whether community residents wanted the change. Most did, and in September 2024, the county asked the postal service to let people use their own community names when they addressed or received mail. 

Acting rapidly for a large federal agency, the postal service agreed last month to make the change. The USPS will promote it through a multi-media effort. 

The good news is that people’s ZIP codes won’t change, the CDA said in a webpage devoted to the change, athttps://www.acgov.org/cda/addresschange.htm. If you need to pick up a package from the post office, keep using the post office that matches your ZIP code, they advise. 

That CDA webpage links to one that shows your now-official community if you enter the street address and ZIP code. You can keep using your “old” address if you like, and this will work as long as the street address and ZIP code are correct. 

While perhaps some may be disappointed, the change of official community by the postal service won’t change who provides local government services you get or what taxes you pay. You remain in unincorporated Alameda County unless you live in a city and remain in the same school district as before. Taxes remain the same, the CDA said.