Everyone has heard of the term “going postal” to describe disgruntled employees, but now it could be used to describe the U.S. Postal Service’s impact on communities if they move forward with an effort to require retrofitting of wall-mounted cluster mailboxes with new boxes that are 25 percent larger. Ostensibly, this effort has been undertaken by USPS to address increasing mail volume but, more importantly, to address security concerns.

USPS officials say that mail theft is on the rise, leading to more problems with identity theft. That may be, but they have not produced concrete figures to support this assertion. Identity theft can happen just as likely from use of the internet and other sources as from the mail. However, if the Postal Service were truly serious about improving mail security, why not require all mailboxes to be secure? While USPS may not think our locked boxes are secure enough, there is no effort to require the millions of stand-alone mailboxes, which have no locks, to be secure at all. I think we know the outcry if that were to happen, so instead we (community, apartment and building owners) are the easy targets.

What are some of the other motivations behind this effort? The direct mail industry does not like magazines to be folded, so they want wider boxes. Yes, I’m serious. USPS wants a parcel locker for every eight boxes, so it can be more competitive with UPS and FedEx. I’m not kidding. And eventually, USPS would like to deliver all mail already sorted into plastic bags that would fit easily into the new boxes. Alert the environmental groups!

The MHI National Communities Council is working closely with our real estate allies to vigorously oppose any retrofitting requirements and we are prepared to ask our allies on Capitol Hill to support us in this effort. Retrofitting for communities can amount to tens of thousands of dollars, so this is a priority issue.

In this classic case of government run amok, USPS will marginally improve mail security at the cost of billions of dollars to real estate owners and their residents. Quite a price to pay for unrolled magazines.

Richard J. Rand is chairman of the MHI National Communities Council and president of Asset Development Group, Inc. in Milwaukee, Wisc. He can be contacted at rrand@assetdevelopment.com