Your Fences

Is your home (or a new home you may be looking at) adjacent to a multi-lane arterial roadway? Does your perimeter fencing face public or common property (ie the roadway)? Then you should be aware that Strathcona County requires fencing between residential areas 

and arterial roads, trails, storm water ponds, schools and park sites. 

There is a total of 45,000 meters of fencing in urban service areas along arterial roadways.

Some of that fencing was built by the County on County land (24%) and private land (6%) along arterial roads such as Wye Rd, Baseline Rd, Cloverbar Road, Sherwood Drive Broadmoore Blvd, Brentwood Blvd, Granada Blvd, Lakeland Drive. County built fences are the responsibility of the County to replace and maintain as required. Adjacent property owners need only to maintain their ‘private’ side.

Seventy percent of arterial fencing was built on private land, facing these same arterial roadways, and is the responsibility of the private property owner to maintain and replace. How did this come to be?

As the County grew from a small bedroom community of hundreds to a large urban centre of tens of thousands, the municipality realized that fence building and repair of fencing on arterial roadways would soon become an onerous burden on tax payers. Private owners constructed arterial fencing on their own lands and are responsible for maintenance and replacement. The remaining 63% of arterial fences were built by developers and then became the responsibility of the owner by a restrictive covenant upon purchase of the lot from the developer.

As these original fences lay in disrepair, with boards gone and entire stretches of fencing down, causing both unsightly and liability issues - our municipality is at a decision point. Do individual taxpayers take up the responsibility for their perimeter fencing? 

If they do – should the County maintain (stain or paint) it’s side? 

Do all taxpayers ante up? 

To what extent does the fact that these properties are on major public roadways factor in? 

If the municipality feels obligated to do a major replacement (at the taxpayers’ expense), then what about those condos and residents that have already replaced their fencing? Do taxpayers then have to pay retroactively?

The above mixed bag of arterial fencing comes from the evolution of the relationship between the municipality, homeowners and developers. There is much work to be done  - but it is on the front burner with County administration giving both this and last Council information sessions. Council has requested viable recommendations to come forward to the Oct. 25, 2011 Council meeting. 

Residents should expect their Council to make a decision on this issue that will be both fair and equitable to homeowners and minimize the burden on the taxpayer.

I welcome your comments at any time.

If you would like to be more fully informed – sign up for my e-news bulletin at carr@strathcona.ab.ca