Montgomery, AL Fence Regulations: Material Restrictions (2026)

Montgomery's zoning ordinance, codified as Appendix C to the City Code, contains a SmartCode form-based overlay at Sec. 2 alongside the conventional district rules. 5 sets the Architectural Standards for property inside a Sub-Urban Transect (T3) zone, the designation used in adopted Community Plans and Infill Plans such as the Downtown master plan. Item (o) permits fences of painted wood board, chain link, brick, stone, or stucco, sized per Table 14L, while item (p) draws the line: barbed wire and razor wire are flatly off the table for both residential and commercial parcels in a T3 zone.

Fence height and setback in T3 areas are separately fixed by Table 14K, referenced in item (n). Outside SmartCode transect zones, Montgomery's conventional Appendix C districts regulate fences by height only: Sec. 7 caps residential and office-district fences at seven feet (eight feet in R-20-t, R-24-t, PGH-35, and PGH-40 districts), dropping to three feet in a required front or street-side yard, but that section is silent on material. Montgomery once had a citywide material ban too. An editor's note in the general code confirms Ord.

No. 36-2024, adopted August 20, 2024, repealed former Article IX, Sections 5-541 and 5-542, which had addressed barbed wire or electrically charged fences generally. Because that repeal removed the only citywide material rule, the SmartCode's T3 barbed-wire/razor-wire ban is now the sole printed fence-material restriction left in Montgomery's code, and it reaches only property inside a designated SmartCode transect zone, not every residential lot in the city.