{"id":31371,"date":"2022-05-26T17:44:16","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T21:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31371"},"modified":"2022-05-26T17:50:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T21:50:02","slug":"new-fence-bylaw-proposal-would-give-enforcement-measures-to-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-fence-bylaw-proposal-would-give-enforcement-measures-to-town\/","title":{"rendered":"New fence bylaw proposal would give enforcement measures to Town"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new, \u201cmodernized\u201d fence bylaw could give Aurora\u2019s bylaw officers more enforcement authority in reviewing fencing issues that pose \u201chealth and safety\u201d concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council, sitting at the Committee level last week, gave the tentative greenlight to the new bylaw, which will be formally presented to Council at a future date for enactment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report to Council by Techa Van Leeuwen, Aurora\u2019s Director of Corporate Services, a new bylaw would give \u201cclarity and consistency\u201d on fence variances that will be considered by Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the Town of Aurora continues to grow, there has been an increase in the number of enquiries related to the fence exemption process,\u201d she said. \u201cThe current Fence Bylaw does not have any provisions outlining the process, documents, or approval authority to obtain a variance, therefore in order to grant a variance Council would be required to pass a site-specific bylaw amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe current Fence Bylaw leaves the Town with limited enforcement tools to achieve compliance. At the recommendation of the Regional Municipality of York\u2019s Prosecution Services Division, the proposed bylaw includes provisions that would allow officers to write an Order to Comply and remediate a violation should all other options prove unsuccessful. Remediation options will assist staff in addressing issues that pose health and safety concerns such as sightline obstructions, deterioration, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA section has also been included in the proposed bylaw that will enable staff to issue an Administrative Monetary Penalty (AMP) to a person who has contravened the bylaw. Staff are currently working with the AMPs project with the objective to have AMPs launched by the end of the year. The benefits of AMPs include improved customer experience, more effective use of Court resources, more efficient use of staff time and reduced dispute rate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed new bylaw was praised by Councillor Wendy Gaertner as being \u201cvery important\u201d for Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes things a lot clearer, it gives staff more power, and it gives us a great tool [for enforcement] for the Town to actually be able to charge for infractions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Councillor Harold Kim, \u201cIt\u2019s a very well-constructed document, so I am in full support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support was also offered by Councillor John Gallo whose support was slightly more tempered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to call it a \u2018necessary evil,\u2019 but I don\u2019t like the word \u2018evil,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIt bothers me we\u2019re at a point where we have to have this monetary penalty system. I just don\u2019t like it. I see the necessity of it, but I just want to communicate that I am disappointed that as a society we have to move in this direction with these types of things because, to me, it is reflective of society we have to have that level of enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sad thing for me to have to approve and move forward. I wish we didn\u2019t have to [and] we could deal with issues in a better fashion, but this is the direction we\u2019re going in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Town\u2019s current Fence Bylaw was put in place in 2005 with minor amendments coming in 2018 to put in provisions for accommodating access to adjacent properties \u201cfor the purpose of maintenance and repair for buildings located within 60cm of the fence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new, \u201cmodernized\u201d fence bylaw could give Aurora\u2019s bylaw officers more enforcement authority in reviewing fencing issues that pose \u201chealth and safety\u201d concerns. Council, sitting at the Committee level last week, gave the tentative greenlight to the new bylaw, which will be formally presented to Council at a future date for enactment. According to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-89Z","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:26:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}