Fence crowds sidewalk, but has right of way
There is seldom a winner in a neighbourhood fence fight, but there are times when one neighbour is on the high side of the skirmish.
That’s the case at the corner of MacPherson and Marlborough Aves., where a new fence that encroaches onto a sidewalk is annoying the neighbours and has put the homeowner on the defensive.
A reader posted a photo on SeeClickFix that really caught our eye. It showed a fence next to a house, with a post at one end that is anchored in a sidewalk and angles across it. We wondered who’d be dumb enough to build a fence on a sidewalk, when they’d have to know the city would order them to take it down.
So we went there and met up with Carlo Zeppieri, the contractor re- building a house at 214 MacPherson, just west of Avenue Rd., who had a lot to say about the neighbours, and none of it good.
The SeeClickFix complaint said “contractor has taken over part of a public sidewalk to install a backyard fence. Sidewalk is very narrow and this exacerbates the situation.”
We asked Zeppieri if the city had ordered him to remove the fence.
Quite the contrary, he said, while providing a colourful opinion of the neighbours. He said the fence is well inside the property line, and that the sidewalk was built decades ago, partly on private property.
A survey done before a rebuild of the house began showed that the property line runs at an angle across the sidewalk.
He added that the fence is about 15 centimetres inside the line, he said.
The fence was built to contain vent pipes that protrude from the side of the house, he said, adding he did his best to ensure the fence takes up as little of the sidewalk as possible.
We watched as parents pushing strollers were able to pass the corner of the fence without the wheels skirting the edge. It’s narrower than city guidelines for sidewalks, but looks just wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair or motorized scooter.
The city’s transportation services department investigated, he said, and told him the corner of MacPherson and Marlborough Aves. needs to be reconfigured, at a cost of $250,000, but they don’t have the money to do it.
In the meantime, Zeppieri says, the city told him: “You do what you have to do.” Status: Elio Capizzano, the area manager of right-of-way management, confirmed that they investi- gated and determined that the fence is indeed on private property. The city has no authority to order it removed, he said. And since the sidewalk is partly on private property, it looks like the neighbours will have to live with the fence. What’s broken in your neighbourhood?
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