Residents will have to wait another month before the new location for the Newhall Post Office opens at 23736 Lyons Ave.
“The post office is indeed not going to open up next week,” said Susan Recchia, a spokesperson for the United States Postal Service. “From what I understand, there are still issues with the parking lot.”
According to Recchia, the new opening date for the United States Post Office will be Feb. 6, moved from its expected opening this upcoming Monday.
USPS said the inside of the Newhall Post Office is “ready to go.” Once the parking lot repairs are complete, officials will move in the location’s Post Office boxes to then open the location to residents the following day.
Chris Smalley, owner of True Value that shares the building with the Newhall Post Office, said the delay is due to permits regarding runoff water.
“There is something new with governmental regulations,” Smalley said. “There’s something for permits… that have to do with water going from a parking lot into a storm drain without a filter system.”
This requirement is called a Standard Urban Stormwater Mitigation Plan (SUSMP) and was adopted by the State Regional Water Quality Board in 2000 to address stormwater pollution for development projects.
Carrie Lujan, communications manager for the city of Santa Clarita, said the engineer for the project, CRC Enterprises, submitted a SUSMP for the installation of a stormwater mitigation device for the parking lot at the end of last year.
“The review of the report and plans was completed and sent to the engineer on January 11, 2017,” Lujan said. “It is anticipated that the contractor will come in sometime next week to pull the permit for the parking lot work.”
Smalley said he and his employees at True Value are ready for the construction to be finished.
“We’re ready to open,” Smalley said. “I have a lot of people ready to start working and they can’t work with the construction.”
The Newhall Post Office has had a tumultuous three years, moving to three separate locations due to lease agreements and construction.
In November 2014, the original Lyons Avenue post office was moved to a temporary location set up at 25549 The Old Road in Stevenson Ranch.
Residents, upset with office’s move out of Newhall, petitioned for the post office to be reopened in the area. In May 2015, USPS began looking at moving the Newhall Post Office back to Newhall.
Before it could open, the location announced in August 2016 that it was being evicted from its temporary location at 25549 The Old Road.
During this interim period, from August 2016 to present, the Newhall Post Office has been operating from another temporary location at 24201 The Old Road.
[email protected]
661-287-5575
On Twitter as @_ChristinaCox_
