City fence limitations - how to overcome?

[hallerb]

My property has a sewer eastment beween 2 homes. I was allowed to put up a 6 foot fence but if it ever needs removed for sewer work removal and replacemnents at my cost...

the best option is a low profile fence eplacement of the existing wire fence with something similiar and plead ignorance if caught. or you can hire a fence crew to do a FAST one day preferably weekend fence replavcement but know they might make you remove it......

another idea is call some local fence contractors and ask for opinions, they want your $ selling you a fence and no doubt have run into this rule before and will know best how to proceed...

[mm]

Why can't he tear out just five feet of it? If the removal and refurbish cost was 60K, it must have been a lot bigger than 5 feet, no?

[mm]

Good point. As you drive into my n'hood there is a right-hand turn, and the HOA approved a 40 inch picket fence, with alternating picket and empty space, like most end of group homes have, and there is nothing about the fence that violates the rules. But if people had had a lot of foresight they might have suggested a rail fence instead, maybe with cross-boards |x| something like that. The owners didn't have a dog, and would probably have been just as happy.

Because when one looks across the yard to the oncoming traffic, and looks through 2 layers of fence, the motion makes the patterns almost dizzying, and one can't tell what is on the other side. Even though the fence is 50% empty space. And 40 inches is plenty high when I'm sitting down in my car, and the land the fence is on is maybe 6 inches higher than the road.

So if you're in the

[mm]

I don't think this has much if any relevance for the OP. But where I went to JHS and HS, we were on a rather major but only two lane road, and the county owned enough to widen it to 4 lanes. There were no fences at all, but some of our neigbors planted bushes or put in a driveway lamp 20 feet back from the road, and others did the same things right up close to the road. The lots are maybe 200 feet deep. Some put in culvert next to the road and buried it, and some just left the original ditch. We were not the first owners, and we inherited culvert and bushes a foot or two from the road. We knew we would have no bushes after they widened the road.

There is much more population north of that house today, but the road still isn't that busy (there are parallel streets a mile away) and 49 years later the road still isn't widened. Spring Mill Rd. in Washington Township, Indianapolis between 59th and 80th St.

[Norminn]

Enforcement of building codes and zoning around here are totally unpredictable - depends on the phase of the moon and who takes a complaint :o)

Best bet is to make an alternative plan to present to the city; they may make exception, and our city does that routinely. A lower fence and some creative landscaping may give you close to what you want. Your lot is 100' x ?

[Banty]

Yep. And it also helps to have some driving reason to need to place the fence there, other than anything that basically boils down to 'I don't like your code'. Some reason why you're uniquely and deleteriously impacted by the limitation. Or some reason why you're borderline - if, for example, your property size would have put you in a different category of restriction if it were slightly different.

If you don't have something like that - yes, making a plan with all the mitigations you can think of (lowering fence and/or landscaping like Norminn suggests) is your only hope.

What WON'T work is walking in with "hey it's my land I don't like your laws", no matter how convolutedly and nicely it's stated.

Banty

[HeyBub]

Tell the city you plan to hold nude vollyball tournaments.

[Doug Kanter]

As you drive around, make a note of some especially ugly commercial establishments. Then, ask someone from the zoning office what the going bribe rate is these days.

[Larry Bud]

The OP should just dig a goddamn moat around his property. Doesn't sound like anything limit how DEEP he can go, just how high.

What is the world coming to when you can't even put a fence where you want it on your own property?

[Larry Bud]

no

It's not convoluted to stand for your own property rights.

[Doug Kanter]

The rules are always very general, and corner lots present special problems. I found it was fairly easy to get an inspector to stop by and give me a variance for a fence which was, in theory, higher than the rules allowed. The OP may find it's equally easy.

[Zootal]

The city has specific rules about obstructions at corners blocking line of sight for traffic, seperate from the setback rule. I don't know why they have the setback rule - especially 15 feet!

[Zootal]

We have a roughtly 125' x 125'. SE Corner of Oak and Franklin, if you are familiar with the area.

[Steve Barker LT]

Unless there's a utility easement between the properties, you should be able to put the fence on the line after consulting with the neighboring property owner.

[mm]

When my next door townhouse neighbors, a previous set from now, wanted to build a bigger deck, they showed up with the plans (which as a next door neighbor I had to approve) 4 minutes after the truck started unloading the wood, and they were going to start work immmediately.

I knew I would sign, but it annoyed me so I said, "Let me look at this stuff" and went into the house. I heard the wife saying "No one's going to tell me what to do with my own house."

I came out about 5 minutes later after signing the plans.

But get this: The wife was a lawyer!

The husband was a computer programmer and a nice guy.

I've had 3 pairs of neighbors where the husband was nice and the wife wasn't. And another whole household of females, 3 generations, where no one is nice.

[mm]

Sorry. I only know the northwest corner.

[Grumman-581]

It's the estrogen thing... Why do you think that another word for "complaining" is "bitching"?

[Grumman-581]

Oh, forgot to add...

[Zootal]

Um....there isn't a NW corner :-)