Fence rules in View Royal

How tall a fence may be in View Royal

In the street-facing part of a lot a fence may not exceed 1.2 m (3.9 ft). View Royal measures that zone front yard or flanking yard. Elsewhere on the lot the maximum is 2 m (6.6 ft).

The rules live in Zoning Bylaw s. 4.8, with s. 3.6 for corners and s. 3.8.2 for water. The governing document is the Zoning Bylaw No. 900 (with amendments including 944, 1000 and 1034).

How the height is measured — and why that matters more than the number

View Royal measures from finished grade — and where the fence sits on a retaining wall, finished grade is the elevation at the BASE of the wall.

Four municipalities in this region measure the same fence four different ways. A fence built to the limit under one method can be over the limit under another, which is why a contractor who works across Greater Victoria cannot carry one number in their head.

If the fence sits on a retaining wall

In View Royal: measured from the base of the wall, so the wall counts; a Code-required guard may go above only in clear glass or largely open form; and two fences or walls less than 1 m apart are measured as one, from the base of the lower to the top of the higher.

This is the single clause that most often decides a terraced lot, and the region splits on it. The City of Victoria measures from the high side of the wall, so the wall costs the owner nothing. Sidney, Saanich, Central Saanich and View Royal count the wall against the fence. Same drawing, opposite answers.

Corner lots and sight lines

On a corner lot: 1.2 m (3.9 ft) inside the triangle. The triangle is measured 6 m each way from the street corner. The most permissive corner height in the region. It catches hedges, bushes, trees and other growth as well as fences.

Do you need a permit?

None for a residential fence.

In ten of the thirteen Greater Victoria municipalities an ordinary residential fence needs nothing at all. The exceptions are Langford, where a fence inside a wildfire-interface or riparian development permit area needs a Development Permit; North Saanich, where a fence of 2 m or more is a "structure"; and Colwood, where a pool fence needs a building permit.

If your lot touches water

No fence, retaining wall or other structure within 15 m of the natural boundary of the sea, or 30 m of any lake, pond, marsh or stream. "Fence" is named expressly.

This is where the thirteen disagree most sharply. Highlands and View Royal prohibit a fence outright within 30 m of fresh water; Central Saanich expressly exempts fences from its marine setback. Knowing which side of a municipal boundary you are on changes the answer completely.

How do you know whether you are inside it? The distance is measured from the natural boundary, and that is not the edge of the water on the day you look — it is the line the water has marked on the ground over time, and on a creek it can sit well back from today's flow. You cannot pace it out and be safe. The people who establish it are a BC land surveyor, or a Qualified Environmental Professional where the Riparian Areas Regulation applies, and several of these bylaws name a QEP themselves. If your lot touches a creek, a ditch that runs most of the year, a pond or the sea, get that line located before you price a fence — it is cheaper than moving one, and in View Royal it may decide whether there is a fence at all.

What you may not build it out of

View Royal prohibits: barbed wire in any zone, except agricultural livestock enclosures, correctional facilities and cannabis production.

What beats these figures in View Royal

Everything above is the general case for an ordinary lot. Each layer below can override it, and for a large minority of properties at least one does. They are not exotic — a creek or the shoreline, a strata bylaw, an easement and agricultural land.

Any part of the lot near the sea, a lake, a pond, a wetland or a watercourse: View Royal does not permit a fence there at all. A ditch that runs most of the year can be a watercourse, and the distance is measured from the natural boundary, which is not the edge of the water today.

A strata bylaw, or a restrictive covenant on your title: Either can forbid a fence View Royal would allow, dictate its style, height and colour, or require written approval first. Where the ground is common or limited common property you do not control it alone. If you rent, you cannot authorise a fence at all — the owner has to ask.

An easement or right of way crossing your land: A fence is generally not permitted across an easement unless that easement allows it, and it is on your title rather than in any bylaw. Search the title before you set the line.

Land in the Agricultural Land Reserve: Usually the layer people worry about and usually not the binding one: a fence is normally an ordinary farm use and the Agricultural Land Commission's own guidance does not treat one as needing an application. What does change on agricultural land is the municipal rule — several municipalities here allow a taller fence on or beside agricultural land than anywhere else. Confirm with the ALC if you are doing more than fencing.

Your zone is named on your property tax notice. Easements and covenants are on your title. The municipality will confirm both.

The trees on your fence line

Almost every fence line wants a tree or two out of the way, and in twelve of the thirteen Greater Victoria municipalities that is regulated — often more tightly than the fence itself. View Royal: Tree Protection Bylaw No. 1069, 2022 (as amended by Bylaw No. 1145).

The smallest tree that is protected here: Ten species are protected outright: Garry Oak, Arbutus, Pacific Dogwood, Pacific Yew, Douglas Fir, Grand Fir, Big Leaf Maple, Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar and Shore Pine.

No tree within 30 metres of a watercourse may be cut or altered without a permit, and nothing may be cut on a steep slope.

What it costs to get wrong: Not less than $1,000 and not more than $50,000, with each protected tree and each day a separate offence.

View Royal also defines a boundary tree — any part of the trunk or trunk flare crossing a property line. Its 30 m watercourse rule for trees matches its 30 m prohibition on fences near fresh water, so on a creekside lot the fence and the trees are controlled by the same distance.

Across the region the smallest protected tree ranges from three centimetres thick in Sidney to eighty in Highlands, and Sooke is the only one of the thirteen with no tree bylaw on private property at all. Walk the line and identify what is in the way before you accept a quote, not after the posts are ordered.

The same fence, across a municipal boundary

Greater Victoria is thirteen separate local governments and the boundary between two of them often runs down the middle of an ordinary residential street. Here is what the same fence runs into a short distance from View Royal.

On a retaining wall Victoria measures from the high side, so the wall costs nothing there — in View Royal it comes straight off your fence height.

Near water the two are opposites: View Royal prohibits a fence outright, Central Saanich expressly exempts fences from its marine setback.

Colwood sets no fence height limit at all, where View Royal holds you to 2 m (6.6 ft).

On a corner lot View Royal caps it at 1.2 m inside the triangle; Esquimalt has no corner rule for fences at all.

None of this is a claim about which municipality borders View Royal — that is a geographic question we have not verified. It is a claim about how far apart the rules are inside one region.

Is a fence a "structure" in View Royal?

s. 3.8.2 names fences expressly, so the water setback does not depend on the structure definition at all.

It sounds like a technicality and it is not. A rule written for "structures" — a water setback, a permit trigger, a setback from a lot line — reaches a fence only where that municipality counts a fence as one. The region is split roughly down the middle.