Union, NY Fence Regulations: Neighbor Fence Rules (2026)

Neighbor-facing fence rules in the Town of Union, Broome County, New York, come from § 300-53.15 of the Consolidated Zoning Ordinance of the Town of Union, Village of Johnson City, and Village of Endicott. Under § 300-10.4 that chapter applies in the Town of Union outside the Villages of Endicott and Johnson City as well as inside both villages.

The first neighbor rule is orientation. Subsection C requires any fence to have its finished or decorative side facing the adjacent properties, and the fence posts and other supporting structures must face the interior of the area to be fenced. The person building the fence therefore puts the rough framing on their own side and shows the good face to the neighbor and the street, with no exceptions listed in the subsection.

The second is upkeep. Subsection I requires every fence to be maintained in a safe, sound and upright condition, and no fence can be erected that creates a safety problem for people using the public right-of-way. The duty is written against the fence itself, so a leaning or collapsing fence is a violation of the chapter whoever built it.

Third is the boundary with the public. Subsection B provides that no fence shall be erected or encroach upon a public right-of-way, so a fence has to stay on private land rather than in the street or sidewalk area. Subsection H adds that solid fences keep an eight-foot setback from the street property line or stay at three feet or lower.

The section stops there on neighbor matters. It contains no formula for splitting the cost of a boundary fence and does not address who owns a fence on a shared line, so a dispute that depends on those points turns on the neighbors' own agreement rather than on a Town of Union provision. Complaints about orientation, condition or encroachment are code enforcement matters handled through the Town's zoning enforcement under § 300-60.7.

Height limits for the same fence are in the same section: six feet in residential districts, with the specifics covered on the fence height page.