Franklin County, WA Fence Regulations: Material Restrictions (2026)

Franklin County's landscaping and screening chapter, which sets design standards for fences countywide, treats barbed wire, razor wire and electrified fencing as materials to keep out of residential neighborhoods rather than regulating them by height alone. Section 17.74.050(G) prohibits barbed and razor wire fencing in all residential districts, full stop, but then carves out three exceptions: suburban residential districts on tracts larger than one acre, the office district, and the central business district. In the C-1 retail business district, the code allows a single strand of barbed wire, and only if it runs along the top rail of the fence or within two inches of it, so a fence built entirely of barbed wire strands would not qualify.

Section 17.74.050(H) applies the same residential-district ban to electrified fencing, with two narrower carve-outs: an electrified fence can serve as a secondary security measure behind an existing fence, or in the county's suburban districts it can be used to contain permitted farm animals. That second exception matters in Franklin County's rural residential and agricultural production zones, where keeping livestock is common but a bare electrified perimeter fence facing the road is still not allowed. Section 17.74.050(E), in the same design-standards subsection, separately bans tires, pallets, tarps, sheet plastic, bed springs, corrugated sheet metal and wheel rims as fence-building materials in any district. Enforcement of all three material rules runs through the planning director or code enforcement officer under Section 17.74.110, with a lien remedy available under Section 17.74.120 after written notice and an uncorrected violation.