How Tall Can Your Fence Be in Toronto? Front-Yard, Rear-Yard and Corner-Lot Limits, and the Exemption Route

Chapter 447 sets the limit by where each stretch of fence stands, so one fence around a corner lot can carry three or four different maximums. Here is the walk from the street to the back lot line.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a Toronto real estate broker. Here is a planning question I like, because it is asked at the right time. An owner on a corner lot wants to replace a tired wood fence that runs from the front of the house, down the side street, past the driveway and across the back. The contractor has a quote ready, and the owner wants one answer before ordering materials: how tall can the new fence be?

On a corner lot there isn’t one answer. Chapter 447 says that where more than one description in its height table applies to a fence, each part is treated as a separate fence with its own maximum (§447-1.2 B(2)). So the honest way to answer is to walk the lot: start at the street edge, move through the front yard, turn down the side by the driveway, and finish in the rear yard. That is how this article is laid out. The figures below are for houses (the by-law’s “single or multiple residential” column) unless I say otherwise.

Front yard: the street edge and the rest

The by-law defines the front yard as the space between the main front wall of the house and the lot line abutting a public highway, extended to the full width of the lot. Inside that space, according to Table 1 of the City of Toronto’s Chapter 447 (as amended by By-law 54-2019), there are two bands.

• Within 2.4 m of the street lot line: 1.2 m (Table 1, Item 1). The same 1.2 m applies on non-residential property and to hedges.
• Further back in the front yard: 2.0 m (Item 2).

One detail matters when you mark the 2.4 m line. Chapter 447 defines “public highway” to include the street, sidewalk and boulevard, so the 2.4 m is counted from your lot line, not from the curb or the edge of the sidewalk. Your survey is the document that shows where that line is.

Corner lots: which side is the front

A corner lot touches two streets, so the by-law has to pick one as the front. It picks the shorter lot line abutting a public highway (not counting a public lane), and the front yard is the space between that line and the nearest wall of the house. The definition doesn’t mention the front door at all; it turns only on which street-facing lot line is shorter.

The longer street-facing line is then a side lot line abutting a public highway. Along it, the table works like this for a house:

• Within 2.4 m of that side lot line and within 2.4 m of a driveway: 2.0 m (Item 3).
• Between 2.4 m from that side lot line and the nearest wall of the house extended to the rear lot line, and within 2.4 m of a driveway: 2.0 m (Item 4; 2.5 m on non-residential property).
• Along the side street but not within 2.4 m of a driveway, Items 3 and 4 don’t apply. On the table’s wording, that stretch falls under Item 6 (a fence not in a front yard, not under Items 3 to 5, and abutting a public highway), which allows 2.5 m.

The result cuts both ways. The side-street fence is not a front-yard fence, so the 1.2 m limit doesn’t follow it down the block, but the driveway zone pulls it back to 2.0 m.

Beside a driveway: the see-through rule

Height is only half of the driveway rule. Despite anything in Table 1, any fence within 2.4 m of any driveway must be open mesh chain-link, or an equivalent open-fence construction, for at least 2.4 m from the lot line where the driveway begins, so it doesn’t block the view of the boulevard or the street (§447-1.2 C(1)). The chapter defines open-fence construction as one that gives drivers and pedestrians an unobstructed view of people, vehicles and their movement through the whole length of the fence.

The see-through stretch also has to stay see-through: no vegetation may grow, and no object may be placed, so as to block the view through it (§447-1.2 D). A solid board fence that steps down to 2.0 m beside the driveway still doesn’t comply if the first 2.4 m from the lot line is solid. This rule applies to “any driveway”, so it is not limited to corner lots.

Rear yard and decks

Once you are behind the house and away from the street, the table’s catch-all applies.

• Ordinary rear or side fence between houses: 2.0 m (Item 9, “any other fence”).
• Fence abutting a multi-residential property, a non-residential property, a public highway or a public walkway: 2.5 m (Item 6), as long as it isn’t in the front yard and isn’t covered by Items 3, 4 or 5. So the rear fence of a house backing onto an apartment building, a plaza or a public walkway can be taller than the one shared with the house next door.
• Fence on an unroofed deck: 2.0 m above the surface of the deck (Item 5), if the deck isn’t in the front yard and isn’t within 2.4 m of a lot line abutting a public highway.

A note on rear lanes. Items 1 to 5 each say in brackets that “public highway” there does not include a public lane. Item 6 has no such bracket, and the chapter’s general definition of public highway includes a lane. Read literally, a rear fence abutting a public lane would fall under Item 6’s 2.5 m; the chapter doesn’t address lanes in Item 6 directly, so if your plan depends on that extra half metre, confirm it with Municipal Licensing and Standards before you build.

If a fence or deck railing also serves as a guard against falls, it must meet Chapter 629, Property Standards, and where more than one by-law sets guard requirements, the more restrictive one applies (§447-1.2 E).

Hedges

Chapter 447’s definition of fence includes “any hedge or shrub that has the same effect” as a fence, meaning one that screens, encloses, divides or marks a boundary. Table 1 gives vegetation its own column, and that column differs from the fence columns:

• Front yard within 2.4 m of the street lot line: 1.2 m, the same as a fence (Item 1).
• Within 2.4 m of a street-facing side lot line and within 2.4 m of a driveway: 2.0 m (Item 3).
• Every other row in the table: no maximum, including the rest of the front yard (Item 2), the rear yard (Items 6 and 9) and decks (Item 5).

The see-through rule still reaches plants: vegetation may not obstruct the view through an open-fence section beside a driveway (§447-1.2 D).

Measuring

The by-law is specific about where the tape starts. Height is measured at any point along the fence’s length, from the average grade level taken 1 m away on either side of the fence, perpendicular to it, and no point may exceed the Table 1 limit (§447-1.2 B(1)). On a slope, that means checking more than one spot: a panel that is 2.0 m at the high end of the yard can be over the limit where the ground falls away.

Two other measuring rules shape the answer:

• Where a fence fits more than one description in the table, each part that matches a single description is treated as a separate fence (§447-1.2 B(2)). A continuous fence can legally step down as it passes into a lower-limit zone.
• On a deck, the reference point is the deck surface, not the ground (Item 5).

Materials you can’t use

Section 447-1.2 A lists what can’t go into a fence on private property, whatever its height:

• Barbed wire, chicken wire or other barbed or sharp material, unless the fence is permitted to exceed 2.5 m and the material sits at least 2.5 m up, on metal brackets angled 45 degrees toward the enclosed area (A(2)).
• Sheet metal or corrugated metal panels (A(3)).
• Electrified fences, except on agricultural land in actual use for raising livestock, with the voltage, design and signage limits in A(4).
• Materials not usually intended for permanent fencing, unless the chapter or another by-law specifically permits them (A(5)).

The one seasonal exception: a snow fence may be used between November 15 and April 15, and it still has to meet the chapter’s other standards (A(6)).

If your fence is already too tall: the exemption route

An officer (any City employee assigned to enforce the chapter) who finds a contravention can issue an order or a notice of violation requiring the work to be done (§447-1.4 C(1)); if it isn’t done, the City can enter and do the work at the person’s expense (§447-1.4 D). According to the City of Toronto Municipal Code, Chapter 447 (consolidation dated June 9, 2021), the fine on conviction is up to $100,000, each day the offence continues can carry a fine of up to $10,000, and the daily fines in total may exceed $100,000 (§447-1.4 A(1) and A(5)).

The alternative to cutting the fence down is a site-specific exemption decided by the community council for your area, or by Council where a fence crosses more than one community council area (§447-1.5 B(1)–(3)). The request can cover any requirement of the article, and if a notice of violation has been issued, it must be made on or before the date on that notice. The chapter refers to a required application fee; the amount isn’t set out in Chapter 447, so I haven’t quoted one here. While the request is pending, the City doesn’t take enforcement action under the chapter (§447-1.5 B(5)).

Older fences

Chapter 447 in its current form came from By-law 641-2018, which replaced the old chapter and came into force on June 20, 2018. The transition rule in §447-1.7 says a fence that was lawfully erected before June 20, 2018, or one that has been granted an exemption under §447-1.5, is deemed to comply with the article until it is replaced, and any replacement has to comply with the article.

Two things follow from the wording. First, the protection depends on the fence having been lawful when it went up; a fence that didn’t meet the rules of its day isn’t described by this section. Second, it ends with replacement. That brings us back to the corner-lot owner with the contractor’s quote: the old fence’s height, whatever it was, doesn’t carry over to the new one. The new fence is measured against Table 1 segment by segment.

Separately, a fence that a site plan agreement, a subdivision agreement, another City by-law or a provincial or federal law requires is exempt from the Chapter 447 provisions it doesn’t meet (§447-1.5 A).

Fence checklist, Chapter 447