A West Island resident has engaged in some unusual landscaping to express his grievance against a plan to install a large community mailbox in front of his Dorval home.
Hans Dybka created a fenced-off mound in front of his home a statement of defiance against Canada Post, which has informed him in December that 47 mailboxes will be placed on the edge of the lawn in front of his property on Strathmore Ave.
“Forty-seven people coming every other day for the rest of my life, that's a lot of traffic,” he said.
“It’s city property," Dybka told CTV Montreal. "But I’ve been living here for 30 years. There are no sidewalks in this part of Dorval and we maintain the grass. So I consider it part of my property. It’s uniform to the house, it extends from the house and we’re worried about the property evaluation too."
Dybka said that the municipality of Dorval has been powerless to aid his effort to quash the impending installation. “The mayor has told me that he wouldn’t want it on his front lawn but I’m on my own, I guess,” said Dybka.
“We'll continue to address the concerns and look again into whether any alternative locations were put forward that are safe and convenient for the 40 or so homeowners in the area that will be served by those boxes. And in some cases we can make the change and in some cases we can't – the box has to go somewhere,” said Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton.
Dybka recruited his 47neighbours to sign a petition and noted that they all told him that wouldn’t want it on his lawn.
One neighbour said that he sides with Dybka in his fight against the placement of the community mailboxes.
“There are better places to do this. There’s the corner, a place down the road where Hydro had some stuff, it’s nobody’s property and there’s a huge piece of land there,” said neighbour Ron Proietti who said that a bit of discussion with residents would have gone a long way. "Involve the people who live here and the solution would be much better."
Canada Post announced its plans to install community mailboxes in December 2013 and has given itself five years to implement the move.
“We’re involved in 90 communities across the country right now and we’ve installed boxes to serve 100,000 addresses last year,” said Hamilton. “This year we’re working on 900,000 addresses that will be complete by the end of the year. We work with municipalities and share information. They participate in that process, (but) at the end of the day, the official position comes down to Canada Post.
