Thunder Bay man's fence must come down, council decides

Superior Morning5:00Down It Comes

Thunder Bay City councillors spent some time last night debating the merits - of a fence. It's a fence that they ultimately decided, was too high.The liveliest discussion at Thunder Bay city hall Monday night happened when council started talking about a fence.

Some councillors said the current fence rules are outdated.

It all started when Councillor Brian McKinnon asked that the city create an exemption for a fence on Elm Street. A homeowner there had asked council in November to keep hisfence at eight feet, but on Monday, administration said the fence had to go.

McKinnon countered that many hedges tower above the six-foot fence bylaw.

"I can name a couple of examples where there are caragana hedges, in my own neighbourhood, where those caragana hedges are about seventeen feet high, he said.

I haven't been given a good answer as to why a hedge is different than a fence."

Mayor Keith Hobbs even called the fence a thing of beauty.

"It's the most beautiful fence I've ever seen in my life, he said.

Councillor Shelby Ch'ng suggested the city could change the bylaw to eight feet.

But she wondered, if we do raise it to eight feet as the standard, we could maybe not have these 41 [complaint] calls, and do something else with our time."

Neighbour complaints

Many councillors sided with administration, including Trevor Giertuga.

"And then we're going to have many people come here and ask for exemptions. As soon as they hear about this, we're going to have tons of people here doing deputations, and we're going to have reports back from administration, he said.

"I certainly sympathize with the owner for sure, because I've had the same situation happen to me in the summer. And, it's generally a neighbourhood argument that causes it. One neighbour complains about the other neighbours, and they had to cut ... two feet off their side fence. And, it cost them a lot of money. They had it built.

Development services manager Mark Smith said the city has always achieved 100 per cent compliance with the fence bylaw.

There's no word as to when the fence will get taken down.