New Bedford, MA Fence Regulations: Material Restrictions (2026)

" That wording draws two boundaries at once. First, it bars barbed wire anywhere inside a residential district, full stop, regardless of height. Second, it extends the ban onto property lines in commercial or industrial zones that happen to abut a residential district, but only for the bottom eight feet; a strand of barbed wire starting above eight feet on such a boundary line is allowed. In a purely non-residential zone with no residential neighbor, the ordinance does not restrict barbed wire at all. The section was adopted with the rest of Chapter 9's accessory-structure rules on December 23, 2003, and amended November 12, 2004.

It stands alongside Section 2338's pool-fencing enclosure duty and Section 2740's vision-clearance limit on corner-lot fences, but those sections regulate height and function rather than material, and none of the three overlaps with another: a barbed-wire fence on a residential lot still has to clear the four-foot pool-enclosure rule if it encloses a pool, and still has to respect the three-and-a-half-foot corner sight-triangle limit if it sits at a street intersection. The ordinance contains no parallel prohibition on electric fencing.