No.72 Regarding Address Organization

We often use the term "address" without much thought, but it has various meanings in a strict sense.
It includes "land number" which indicates the location of the land, "address" which registers where people live, and "location" which registers the location of a corporation's head office. Each of these is defined by laws such as the Real Estate Registration Act, the Basic Resident Register Act, and the Commercial Registration Act, with the basis being the land number.
The "land number" refers to the number assigned by the registration office for each parcel of land, which originally comes from the land survey records created during the Taiko land survey, and was numbered during the issuance of land certificates in the Meiji era that established modern land ownership.
Initially, the numbers were arranged in an orderly manner according to certain rules, but due to circumstances such as subdivision and consolidation from inheritance and sales, division due to the construction of roads and railways, and new numbering due to changes in municipal boundaries, the regularity has gradually been lost. Now, the numbers are not arranged in order, some are skipped, and many residences are built with the same number, leading to a very confusing situation.
In this context, requests for improvement have been received from citizens and business operators, and the city has been sequentially organizing parts of the Hirao area in the Tama New Town area and existing urban areas through a method called "town boundary and name number organization."
In 1987, new town names were assigned to the Koyodai area, part of the Hirao area in 1990, the Nagamine area in 1994, and the Wakabadai area in 1998, with the addresses being renumbered.
The organization of land numbers based on these towns has achieved certain results in making addresses clearer, and there is a policy to sequentially organize all areas in the city, starting with the Hirao area of the existing urban area.

However, this method called "Town Boundary and Name Number Organization" is a technique that corrects the notation of land registration itself. While it is easier to organize in cases like the birth of new districts such as new towns or when it involves the relocation and modification of plots like in the Land Readjustment Project, applying it uniformly to existing urban areas presents technical difficulties, which has led to a suspension of its implementation.
To break this situation, in April 2016, we assigned staff responsible for address designation to the City Planning Division and began research and investigation on the organization of addresses throughout the city.
Until now, the city has been constrained by the "Town Boundary and Name Number Organization," but we are considering the introduction of "Address Designation" based on laws that had not been implemented in the city, taking into account the implementation status in neighboring cities, and examining methods suited to the characteristics of each district.
In August of this year, we established the "Inagi City Address Organization Citizen Council," composed of representatives from neighborhood associations in various districts, public offices such as police and fire departments, commerce and industry operators, and citizens recruited through public solicitation, to request the formulation of basic policies regarding the review.
The organization of addresses has a significant direct impact not only on citizens' lives but also on community activities and business operations. Therefore, we will continue to carefully consider and incorporate the opinions of citizens and relevant organizations.
Please note that the actual address organization will require significant costs and time, so we will proceed sequentially as soon as we have the understanding and preparation of the district residents.
Additionally, for individual implementations, we will establish an "Address Organization Deliberation Council" and a "District Citizen Study Group" for each relevant area to discuss whether to implement it individually.