Sign up for Civic Address Signs

Emergency services can't help you if they can't find you. Without properly posted civic numbers to guide them, emergency responders may have difficulty locating the site of a 911 emergency. Civic numbers are relatively inexpensive, and extremely effective.

Posting of all civic address signs by property owners is mandatory within the Municipality of the County of Cumberland, and there is a civic addressing bylaw enforcement program underway, in an attempt to ensure all signs are posted.

You can contact us to order a civic address sign for $20 (complete with locally manufactured post). You can also order signs from most fire departments; see the Emergency Management Office's list of province-wide suppliers.

If your sign is absent, and we erect a sign for you as part of the bylaw enforcement program, it will be more expensive. That expense will be added to your next tax bill.

Some Tips For Posting Your Civic Sign:

Signs should be visible from the street during night or day (unobscured and within 2-6m of the street works best)
Numbers should be posted at least 1.2m (48") above the ground.
Civic numbers should be posted on the same side of the road that the property is located (preferably at the driveway, or access point on the property).
The sign should be blue with reflective white numerals (numbers 2" tall minimum)
The number should be on both sides of the sign, facing traffic driving from either direction.

For more information, please see our Civic Addressing Bylaw (219 kB)).

Unsure About Your Civic Address?

If there is any doubt about your civic address, please don't hesitate to contact us to verify or find it for you.

You could also view your civic address using the NSCAF Civic Viewer.

Another way to verify your address is by contacting the Emergency Management Office, at 1-800-388-3911.

If your land is vacant, you may not have a civic address; civics are generally associated with a building, although they may also be associated with other geographic locations of human activity (for example, recreational fields, parks, trail heads, etc). Some properties will have multiple civic addresses, especially if there are several buildings on a property.

About Civic Addresses

Civic addresses are different than mailing addresses.
A civic address includes:

the civic number,
street name and street type (i.e. Street, Road, Avenue, Lane),
community, and
county or municipality

For example, our civic address is: 1395 Blair Lake Road, Upper Nappan, Cumberland County.
This is the address we would state if calling 911 for emergency service.
We would not give our mailing address, which is 1395 Blair Lake Road, RR#6, Amherst, NS, B4H 3Y4.

Civic addresses are usually added by The Municipality as part of the building permit process. Contact us if you wish to discuss adding a civic number that is not to be added as part of the building permit process. (For example, if you have vacant land where you go to pick blueberries or cut wood, it might be a good idea to have a civic number posted at your property access point in case of an emergency. We could assign that civic address for you.)

All official civic addresses in Nova Scotia are maintained in a geographic file called the Nova Scotia Civic Address File (NSCAF). The NSCAF is a comprehensive system that involves numerous components including the public, municipalities, First Nations communities, Emergency Management Office (EMO), Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR), Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations (SNSMR), emergency response agencies, telephone service providers, and many others.