Fence laws in Eagan, Minnesota
What the Eagan municipal code says about fences, one topic at a time, with the section number and a link to the document behind every line. Where Eagan sets no rule of its own, the Minnesota rule is shown in its place and marked as such.
Fence laws in Eagan, Minnesota, question by question
The short version
- Who pays on the line
- Eagan settles the orientation question from the owner side rather than the neighbor side.
- How tall
- Eagan states its residential heights in two short sentences, and the answer turns on the yard and the district. The figure is 6 feet, for fence in a side or rear yard.
- Permits
- The Eagan fence subdivision names no fence permit, and the answer turns on the district and what the fence encloses. The figure is 4 feet, for minimum pool fence height and distance from the pool.
- Pool barriers
- Minnesota rules say a public pool has to be closed off so children cannot get in. The figure is 5 feet, for minimum height of fencing around a public pool.
- Spite fences
- Minnesota counts a spite fence as a private nuisance.
- Measured from what
- Minnesota does name the ground, once. The figure is 16 inches, for bottom wire of a legal fence, measured from the ground. It reaches a legal fence built of barbed wire only.
- Corner lots
- Eagan leaves corner clearance to the traffic visibility requirements elsewhere in the city code. The figure is 30 feet, for distance from the intersecting curbline the rule reaches.
- Retaining walls
- A retaining wall in Minnesota needs no building permit if it is four feet tall or less, and the four feet is measured from the bottom of the footing up to the top of the wall, not from the ground. The figure is 4 feet, for height at or below which a retaining wall needs no building permit. It reaches work covered by the Minnesota State Building Code only.
- Materials
- Eagan names three material rules and no permitted list, and the answer turns on the district and whether the land is farmed. The figure is 30 days, for how long a temporary fence may stand.
- Livestock
- Minnesota lists the builds that count as a legal fence. The figure is 32 inches, for minimum woven wire height on a legal fence that carries two barbed wires above it.
Who owns the fence between two properties in Eagan?
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Eagan answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Eagan settles the orientation question from the owner side rather than the neighbor side. The finished side of all fences has to face away from the lot of the fence owner, which reaches every boundary regardless of whether a street, a neighbor or open land sits on the other side, and it needs no list of what the fence might face. The whole subdivision is written about boundary fences, so the rule is aimed squarely at the shared line. What the section does not do is set any distance from a lot line, ask for the consent of the adjoining owner before a fence goes up on or near the boundary, or divide the cost of a fence built on a shared line. Those are left to private agreement and to the Minnesota fence law. Nor does it say anything about easements, so a fence in a drainage or utility easement is governed by the terms of that easement rather than by the zoning code.
The finished side of all fences shall face away from the fence owner's lot.
Also on fences on the property line in Eagan
- set in state lawMinnesota splits the cost of a fence on the property line in equal shares, and only on farm land. Both sides have to be used, fully or partly, to raise or keep livestock, and at least one owner has to want a fence. Then each side builds and keeps up half. The statute names which animals count as livestock. A yard that holds none of them is outside the rule. Minn. Stat. 344.03, subd. 1(a)Minnesota · Statute
- set in state lawMinnesota settles a boundary fence argument through fence viewers, who are town officers picked for the job. When one side will not build or fix a fence it has to keep, the other side can complain to them. The fence viewers give notice, look at the fence or at whether one is needed, and can order the work done in a reasonable time. If that order is ignored, the side that complained can do the work and get paid back under section 344.05. Minn. Stat. 344.04Minnesota · Statute
How tall can a fence be in Eagan?
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Eagan answers this, but the answer changes depending on the yard and the district.
Eagan states its residential heights in two short sentences. In a side or rear yard a fence may not exceed six feet, and in a front yard it may not exceed forty-two inches. There is no separate street side yard figure, no allowance for a lot backing onto an arterial, no exception for a tennis court or a pool, and no route to a taller fence on a house lot written into the section at all. A property line fence in any business or industrial district may not exceed eight feet, and the only way past that is a conditional use permit. The brevity is the point: where most cities in this set build a table crossing yards against districts, Eagan gives two residential numbers and one commercial one. The rules apply to boundary fences, which the section names specifically, so a fence standing well inside a lot is not what the subdivision is written about.
In side or rear yards, fences shall not exceed a maximum height of six feet. In front yards, fences shall not exceed 42 inches in height.
The answer turns on the yard and the district.
- a side or rear yard
- Six feet. 6 ft
- a front yard
- Forty-two inches. 42 in
- a business or industrial property line
- Eight feet. 8 ft
- anything taller
- A conditional use permit.
Also on fence height in Eagan
- no rule, documents checkedMinnesota sets no statewide limit on how tall a fence at a house can be. The boundary fence chapter says what a farm fence is built from and never caps a fence in a yard. The building code lets a fence up to seven feet go without a permit, which is a permit line and not a height cap. The city or county sets the limit. Minn. Stat. 344.02, 344.03Minnesota · Statute
Do I need a permit for a fence in Eagan?
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Eagan answers this, but the answer changes depending on the district and what the fence encloses.
The Eagan fence subdivision names no fence permit. The only approval in it is a conditional use permit, which is what lets a property line fence in a business or industrial district exceed eight feet, and the city may also approve a temporary fence standing longer than thirty days for good cause. Neither route is open to a house lot fence over six feet, because the residential paragraph states its limits without an exception clause. Where the code does require a fence and set its terms is around a pool: an outdoor swimming pool has to be enclosed by a security fence or wall at least four feet but not more than six feet high, standing at least four feet from the edge of the pool, and that rule sits in the construction licensing and permits chapter rather than in the zoning code. So a pool fence is a building matter in Eagan and a boundary fence is a zoning one.
Property line fences within all business and industrial districts shall not exceed eight feet in height, except by conditional use permit
11.70, Subd. 16(C), with (A)(1)
The answer turns on the district and what the fence encloses.
- a house lot fence
- No permit named in the section.
- a commercial fence over eight feet
- A conditional use permit.
- a temporary fence past thirty days
- City approval for good cause.
- a pool fence
- Four to six feet, four feet from the water. 4 ft
Also on permits in Eagan
- set in state lawA fence in Minnesota seven feet tall or shorter needs no building permit. Minnesota runs one building code for the whole state, and the rules that come with it list the work that needs no permit. A fence is on that list up to seven feet. Above seven feet it needs a permit. Minn. R. 1300.0120, subp. 4Minnesota · Building code
Pool fence requirements in Eagan
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Minnesota answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Minnesota rules say a public pool has to be closed off so children cannot get in. Where a fence does that job it has to stand at least five feet high, with gates that close and latch themselves and can be locked. No opening in the fence can be wider than four inches, no gap under it can be wider than two inches, and it cannot be built in a way that is easy to climb. The rule covers public pools. A pool at a private home is not in it.
This one is Minnesota law, not Eagan law. All Minnesota findings
Access to a public pool must be controlled to effectively prevent the entrance of children.
5 ftminimum height of fencing around a public pool
Spite fence laws in Eagan
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Minnesota answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Minnesota counts a spite fence as a private nuisance. Any fence or other structure put up or kept there to annoy the owner or occupant next door falls under the statute. The current text names no height at all, so the test is why the fence is there, not how tall it is.
This one is Minnesota law, not Eagan law. All Minnesota findings
Any fence, or any other structure, maliciously erected or maintained for the purpose of annoying the owners or occupants of adjoining property shall be deemed a private nuisance.
How fence height is measured in Eagan
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Minnesota answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Minnesota does name the ground, once. Section 344.02 lists the fences that count as legal, and the barbed wire one puts the top wire no more than forty eight inches high and the bottom wire twelve to sixteen inches from the ground. So the bottom of that fence is measured from the ground. The top is a bare number with no surface named, which leaves a fence on a slope unanswered. For a fence at a house, section 462.357 lets the city set the height rule, so the city decides how it is measured too.
This one is Minnesota law, not Eagan law. All Minnesota findings
fences consisting of at least four barbed wires with at least 40 barbs to the rod, the wires firmly fastened to posts not more than one rod apart, the top wire not more than 48 inches high and the bottom wire 12 to 16 inches from the ground
16 inbottom wire of a legal fence, measured from the ground
Also on how height is measured in Eagan
- no rule, documents checkedThe fence subdivision gives six feet, forty-two inches and eight feet, and never says what any of them is measured from. No grade is named, nothing addresses a fence on sloping ground, on a berm, or on top of a retaining wall, and no allowance is given for a post cap standing above the top rail. The omission is easy to miss because the section is so short that there is nowhere the rule could have gone and been overlooked. Where the same chapter does state a vertical measurement it does so plainly, allowing height limits in the estate and residential districts to be increased by fifty percent for antennas, radios, televisions and flagpoles, and requiring a solid six foot screen where a motor fuel station abuts a residential district. So the drafters wrote heights carefully elsewhere and left the fence datum open. 11.70, Subd. 16Eagan · Zoning code
Fence rules for corner lots in Eagan
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Eagan does not set this. It leaves it to the traffic visibility requirements elsewhere in the city code.
Fences on any corner lot in Eagan erected within thirty feet of the intersecting curbline are made subject to the traffic visibility requirements set out elsewhere in the code, and the fence rules give no height band or triangle of their own. Two things are worth noting. The measurement runs from the curbline rather than from the property corner or the right-of-way line, which is a different and usually larger area on a street with a wide boulevard, and it is the pavement edge a driver actually sees from. And thirty feet is a generous radius by the standards of this set, where ten, fifteen and twenty feet are the common figures. What happens inside that thirty feet is not stated here, so a reader has to go to the traffic visibility section to learn whether a low fence is allowed, whether an open fence escapes, and how the triangle is drawn.
Fences on all corner lots erected within 30 feet of the intersecting curbline shall be subject to traffic visibility requirements set forth elsewhere in this Code.
30 ftdistance from the intersecting curbline the rule reaches
The code hands this to the traffic visibility requirements elsewhere in the city code, which is not published in the code itself.
Also on corner visibility in Eagan
- set in state lawMinnesota names the fence and names the roads. Chapter 160 makes it a misdemeanor to put a fence on the right of way of a trunk highway, a county state aid highway, a county highway or a town road. The one exception is a lane fence at the ends of a livestock crossing. The same section bars a building or structure inside the limits of any highway. Neither reaches a fence standing back on a private corner lot. Section 462.357 gives the city power over the height of structures and the size of yards, and a clear view triangle is written there. Minn. Stat. 160.2715Minnesota · Traffic code
Retaining wall rules in Eagan
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Minnesota answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
A retaining wall in Minnesota needs no building permit if it is four feet tall or less, and the four feet is measured from the bottom of the footing up to the top of the wall, not from the ground. Minnesota prints this in its own state rule instead of pointing at a model code. Two things take a wall off the no permit list at any height. One is holding up a surcharge, which means extra weight pressing on the soil behind the wall, such as a driveway or a building. The other is holding back Class I, II or III-A liquids, which are liquids that burn.
This one is Minnesota law, not Eagan law. All Minnesota findings
retaining walls that are not over four feet (1,219 mm) in height measured from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall, unless supporting a surcharge or impounding Class I, II, or III-A liquids;
4 ftheight at or below which a retaining wall needs no building permit
Fence materials allowed in Eagan
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Eagan answers this, but the answer changes depending on the district and whether the land is farmed.
Eagan names three material rules and no permitted list. Barbed wire fences are permitted only in nonresidential zoning districts, with no strand count, no minimum height above the ground and no security justification required, so a business or industrial lot may use it and a house lot may not. Above ground electric boundary fences are permitted only in the agricultural district and only where the property is an active farm, which ties the exception to what the land is actually used for rather than to how it is zoned. And no temporary fence, snow fence or erosion control fence named as examples, may stand on any property for more than thirty days unless the city approves it for good cause, which is a shorter leash than the seasonal window several other Minnesota cities use. Everything else has to be maintained under the building and structure safety and appearance rules in the public protection chapter.
Barbed wire fences shall be permitted only in non-residential zoning districts.
The answer turns on the district and whether the land is farmed.
- a residential district
- No barbed wire.
- an active farm
- An above ground electric boundary fence.
- a snow or erosion fence
- Thirty days without approval. 30 days
- everything else
- No permitted materials list.
Also on materials in Eagan
- set in state lawMinnesota lists five builds that count as a legal fence on a property line, and four of the five are wire. Barbed wire appears in all four, either on its own or stacked above woven wire, with rules on how many strands, how many barbs and how far apart the posts stand. The fifth is an open list of rails, beams, wires, boards, stone walls or a mix, so long as the fence viewers judge it equal to the others. No material is ruled out. Minn. Stat. 344.02Minnesota · Statute
Livestock and boundary fence law in Eagan
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Minnesota answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Minnesota lists the builds that count as a legal fence. Woven wire at least thirty two inches tall with two barbed wires above it counts. So does woven wire at least forty inches tall with one barbed wire above it, and woven wire at least forty eight inches tall with one barbed wire above it. All three go on well set posts no more than a rod apart. A rod is sixteen and a half feet. Four barbed wires also count, with at least forty barbs to the rod, the top wire no higher than forty eight inches and the bottom wire twelve to sixteen inches off the ground. Anything the fence viewers judge equal to those counts too.
This one is Minnesota law, not Eagan law. All Minnesota findings
The following are legal and sufficient fences: (a) fences consisting of at least 32-inch woven wire and two barbed wires firmly fastened to well-set posts not more than one rod apart, the first barbed wire being above and not more than four inches from the woven wire and the second barbed wire being above and not more than eight inches from the first wire;
32 inminimum woven wire height on a legal fence that carries two barbed wires above it
Also on agricultural fencing in Eagan
- set in state lawMinnesota puts the duty on the animal owner. Letting cattle, a horse, a donkey, a mule, sheep, swine or a goat run loose in the state is against the law, and driving an animal onto someone's land over their objection counts as running loose too. The section does not ask the neighbor to have built a fence first. Minn. Stat. 346.16Minnesota · Statute
Documents behind this page
9 documents, of which 1 was published by Eagan itself. Each was read on the date shown.
- Minnesota Legislature, Office of the Revisor of StatutesMinnesota Statutes, Chapter 344, Section 344.03, Expense; Equal Shares
- Minnesota Legislature, Office of the Revisor of StatutesMinnesota Statutes, Chapter 344, Section 344.04, Failure to Build or Repair; Rights of Complainant
- City of EaganEagan City Code, Chapter 11, Land Use Regulations (Zoning), Section 11.70, Performance Standards, Subdivision 16, Fences
- Minnesota Legislature, Office of the Revisor of StatutesMinnesota Statutes, Chapter 344, Partition Fences
- Minnesota Department of Labor and IndustryMinnesota Rules, Chapter 1300, Part 1300.0120, Permits
- Minnesota Department of HealthMinnesota Rules, Chapter 4717, Part 4717.1550, Pool Access Restriction; Fencing
- Minnesota Legislature, Office of the Revisor of StatutesMinnesota Statutes, Chapter 561, Section 561.02, Maliciously Maintained Structure
- Minnesota Office of the Revisor of StatutesMinnesota Statutes, Chapter 160, Section 160.2715, Right-of-way use; misdemeanors
- Minnesota Legislature, Office of the Revisor of StatutesMinnesota Statutes, Chapter 346, Animals, Section 346.16, Running at Large; Defined; Prohibited; Treble Damages
What this page does not cover
A city ordinance is not the only rule that reaches a fence. The zoning district a parcel sits in can change the height allowed on it, and so can an overlay district, a recorded easement, a fire hazard severity zone or a coastal zone. A homeowner association can be stricter than the city and nothing in the municipal code will say so. None of those appear here.
The rules above are the ones Eagan publishes, plus the Minnesota rules that apply where the city sets none. Fence laws in Minnesota has the state layer in full.
This is general information drawn from published government documents. It is not legal advice, ordinances are amended, and the date beside each finding is the date the document was read. How findings are made · What the terms mean