Grand Forks, ND Fence Regulations: Height Limits (2026)

City Code Section 18-0304(5) sets the operative height limits for walls, fences and hedges occupying a required yard. In the required side or rear yard, a fence, wall or hedge may not exceed seven feet in height. Within the first fifteen feet of the required front yard, measured from the front lot line, the limit drops to thirty inches so sightlines toward the street stay open near the property's edge. Beyond that first fifteen feet, a front-yard fence, wall or hedge can rise back up to seven feet.

The zoning administrator is authorized to grant an exception to any of these height limits on a specific finding that the fence, wall or hedge will not cause a significant visual obstruction, so a taller front-yard fence is possible only with that administrative sign-off. Section 18-0304(12) layers on a separate corner-lot rule: nothing may be erected, placed, planted or allowed to grow so as to materially impede vision between two and one-half feet and ten feet above the centerline grade of the intersecting streets, within the triangle bounded by the corner lot's property lines and a line connecting points thirty feet from the intersection along each street line. Section 18-0309(5) cross-references this same 18-0304(5) and (12) clearance standard for landscape materials placed near a corner lot.