How much privacy can you legally build?

The honest ceiling, municipality by municipality

Highlands is the outlier at 2.5 m within 10 m of a lot line. Esquimalt, View Royal, Sooke and Oak Bay reach 2.0 m. Saanich, North Saanich and Central Saanich sit at 1.9 m. Victoria is 1.83 m, Langford and Sidney 1.8 m. Metchosin and Colwood set no limit at all.

In the street-facing part of the lot every one of them drops sharply — most to 1.2 m, which is four feet. A privacy fence across the front of a house is not available anywhere in this region.

Height is not the only control — opacity is regulated too

Langford requires that a front fence within the required setback be "wrought iron, picket or similar style providing less than complete visual screening". A 1.2 m solid cedar fence along the street there is a legal height at an illegal opacity. The solid 1.8 m run is permitted only from 1.8 m behind the front building line.

Oak Bay allows an extra 0.46 m (1.5 ft) of trellis above the limit, but only if the laths are no more than 50 mm wide and the openings meet At least 25% of the vertical plane, in every section between posts, with laths no more than 50 mm wide. A solid top rail dressed up as lattice fails that test.

Sooke goes the other way: fence additions count toward total height, so a lattice topper buys nothing.

Central Saanich defines a trellis as part of the fence, so it carries the fence height — the opposite of Oak Bay.

If you back onto a highway or the railway

Sidney — a property line abutting Highway 17 may carry 1.8 m for its entire length, overriding the 1.2 m front cap.

Esquimalt — a residential parcel immediately adjacent to the E & N right of way may have a fence 2.0 m above the grade of the right of way, parallel to it, expressly "to ensure privacy for the residents", notwithstanding several zone rules. There is a matching clause for a fence on top of a retaining wall on the north side.

Sooke — all yards abutting Highway 14 on residential properties get 2 m.

These are the three "my property backs onto a transport corridor" answers in the region, and all three are findable only by reading the bylaw.