Duane Hicks
The Town of Fort Frances is preparing a new fence bylaw for council’s consideration, which will relax the rules regarding corner sight triangles as well as fences and hedges on corner lots.
Planning and Development superintendent Rick Hallam said yesterday that during a recent review of Bylaw 13/01, one of the biggest concerns—and source of controversy—was the issue of safety at intersections where sight is impeded by an over-height fence, hedge, or other visual obstruction.
As directed, Planning and Development staff researched municipalities across Ontario in regards to “corner sight triangles,” and found that the concept has been included in many municipal zoning or fence bylaws across Ontario.
Since there seems to be no universal standard of corner distance or height of visual obstruction, municipalities instead have adopted individual standards of what works best for them, noted Hallam.
“We felt it was time that we addressed this particular issue, but we wanted to address it in a way that is was more sensitive to, I guess you would say, a more rural setting as opposed to the City of Toronto or Mississauga,” he remarked.
“And I think we’ve accomplished that.”
As a result of this review, the Planning and Development executive committee has recommended a whole new fence bylaw be drafted for adoption by council.
“The requirements for fences, in general, are going to stay the same but there will be a renewed focus on corner sight triangles,” said Hallam.
“We have actually relaxed the requirements dramatically.”
One change is the linear measurement of a sight triangle to be taken along the intersecting exterior lot lines and be a distance of 4.5 metres from the intersection point measured along both directions.
Under the current fence bylaw, that distance is nine metres.
As well, under the proposed new bylaw, the maximum height of any fence, hedge, or other visual obstruction located on a corner lot must not be greater than 1.2 metres (four feet) above the established grade.
This is double the current height of two feet.
But while the restrictions have been relaxed, the new fence bylaw will not permit “grandfathering” of existing non-compliant situations (i.e., fences or hedges on corner lots) as they relate to corner sight triangles.
“We are going to ensure in the new bylaw there will be no carry-over and no ‘grandfathering’ for those persons who have existing hedges or fences on corner lots,” Hallam noted.
“They will be compelled to reduce the height, but it won’t be as dramatic as in the past, when we had to go out and say, ‘Look, you have got to chop this down to two feet.’
“Now, we’re going to allow them four feet,” he explained.
Another big change is that the provision of sight triangle regulations only will apply to uncontrolled intersections (i.e., those without a four-way stop or traffic signal light).
Under the current fence bylaw, sight triangle regulations apply to every intersection.
Putting safety at the forefront, Hallam said there always may be exceptions to the rules and there will continue to be a provision addressing this in the new fence bylaw.
“If there’s an identified traffic safety issue, and it would be up to the town to decide if there’s an actual traffic safety issue, then we can say, notwithstanding the rest of the bylaw, we’ve identified this particular corner as having an issue and you’re going to have to do what we tell you to do,” he remarked.
Hallam noted the issue of sight triangles only will be addressed or spoken to in the new fence bylaw, adding references to “sight triangles” will be removed from the zoning bylaw by way of an amendment to coincide with the adoption and passing of the new fence bylaw.
This is because the zoning bylaw currently is being updated along with the town’s official plan, but this process likely won’t be completed until next spring or summer.
“Rather than wait on the fence bylaw and deal with the issue in the zoning bylaw all at the same time, it’s more expedient to do an amendment to the existing zoning bylaw and then have that amendment picked up in the new zoning bylaw when it comes forward,” Hallam said.
Council approved a report from Hallam regarding the new fence bylaw at its regular meeting Monday night. It now is being prepared for council consideration, to be voted on at a future meeting.
Proper notice of the meeting will be given to the public in the near future.
“I am pretty confident the residents of Fort Frances are going to embrace this new bylaw,” said Hallam.
“It certainly goes a long way to relax the requirements and to make it more palatable for all of those people who wish to have a hedge on their corner,” he added.
