Buffalo Grove inches toward allowing higher fences

Buffalo Grove trustees are setting their sights on higher height limits for fences in residential areas.

The village board Monday discussed raising the limit from five to six feet, but deferred passing an ordinance making it official until some adjustments are made in its language.

Trustee Beverly Sussman said she had no problem with raising the height, since it does not seem to create issues in other towns.

“If there was a problem with that, the police departments would go to the village to discuss and see if an ordinance should be passed so that they would lower the height of the fence,” she said.

Trustee Steven Trilling provided the dissenting voice, saying that while he understands the privacy issues involved, he has aesthetic concerns.

“I would like to think that we’re an open community,” he said. “I would like to think that we would get along with neighbors. I would like to think that we interact with neighbors and I would like to see the streetscape.

Once the fences go up, “we start to close in into our own little worlds,” Trilling added.

The village has received just 67 requests over the last 10 years for variances from the five-foot limit. But Sussman said that number is very misleading.

“(A) lot of people don’t apply because they just don’t want to go through the hassle of having to go through that whole process,” she said. “It is not so easy to have to appear before the (Zoning Board of Appeals) or the village board and give personal information.”

The proposed change has the blessing of Police Chief Steve Balinski, who said the increase would have a negligible impact on police operations.

“The days of jumping over a five or six-foot fence to apprehend a felon (are) relatively nonexistent,” he wrote in a memo to the village board.

There remains some tweaking to be done in the ordinance, including possible changes to a section barring posts from extending more than six inches above the height of the fence or beyond the decorative cap on the post, whichever is greater.

Trustee Jeffrey Berman raised a concern about the height of the decorative cap, asking Brian Sheehan, the village’s deputy building commissioner/health officer, whether there should be an absolute limit.

“There are so many different varieties out there (of decorative caps), if something new comes along, I would hate to limit it,” Sheehan said.