Corner lots and sight lines

The thirteen corner rules

The second column is the height limit inside the triangle; the third is how the triangle is drawn.

Two municipalities answer with geometry, not a number

Langford and Colwood both say, in substance: nothing may block the view between a point 0.9 m above one road surface and an object 0.9 m above the other. Colwood adds that nothing wider than 0.6 m may sit in the triangle, and applies the rule where a highway is 6 m or more wide.

There is no number to publish for either. On a corner where one street falls away, the permitted height is whatever the sight line allows — which means the answer cannot be given from a desk.

The strictest and the most permissive

North Saanich at 0.5 m is the strictest, and it names fences expressly so the structure definition cannot be argued around. At the other end, View Royal allows 1.2 m — more than twice as much — and catches hedges, bushes, trees and other growth in the same clause.

Sooke is not on that scale at all: no fence in the triangle, full stop, and a hedge used as a living fence is held to the same rule. It is the only municipality that closes the hedge loophole explicitly.

Sidney goes the other way and exempts a fence from its visual-clearance rule, while leaving vegetation caught by it.

Where a provincial road is involved

The City of Victoria is the only municipality that scales the triangle by street class: 6 m where one street is an arterial, 3 m otherwise.

Saanich goes further. At the intersection of an arterial highway with any other highway, anything over 0.6 m wide and 0.9 m high inside a 6 m triangle needs the consent of the Minister of Transportation — provincial consent, not a municipal permit. It is the one place in the region where a residential fence question leaves the municipality entirely.