FENCE RULES – ALICE (CITY), TEXAS
OVERVIEW
This page concerns single-family residential fence installation and replacement within the incorporated City of Alice in Jim Wells County, Texas.
Alice requires a permit before fence construction and inspection when the work is complete. The current fee is $50. Height and placement depend on zoning: R-2 through R-6 have 4-foot front and 6-foot back-yard limits, while R-1 restricts fences in front of the building line with a narrow legacy-block exception. Corner lots have a 15-foot property-line triangle where no fence is permitted. Wood, vinyl/PVC and chain-link are subject to the chapter’s material standards rather than a general approved list. Electric fencing, drainage interference and right-of-way encroachment are prohibited. Updated November 2026.
| Quick question | Alice answer |
|---|---|
| Permit or approval | A building permit is required before any fence construction within city limits. The current fee is $50, and the completed fence must be inspected. |
| Typical fence height | In R-2 through R-6: front yard 4 feet, back yard 6 feet. In C/D districts: front and back yards 8 feet. R-1 has a special front-building-line rule. |
| Placement & property lines | Specified districts permit property-line fences. Nothing may protrude over a property line. A 15-foot property-line corner triangle permits no fence of any height or type. |
| Common fence materials | Wood, Vinyl/PVC and Chain-link: no general approved-material list is prescribed; all materials must satisfy the fence chapter’s fire-zone standard and project requirements. Electric fencing is prohibited. |
| Important local conditions | Fence rules may be further affected by zoning district, R-1 legacy front fences, corner lots, drainage, street/alley rights-of-way, floodplain development, pool or animal enclosure use, agricultural operations and private restrictions. |
| Official local resource | Alice Building Inspection |
The table above is for quick reference; additional details appear in the corresponding sections below. Before purchasing materials or beginning construction, read the sections that apply to the property, review the linked official sources, and confirm site-specific questions with the City’s Building Department or the responsible office identified for that issue.
GOVERNANCE
The Alice City Council adopts the municipal code and zoning ordinance. Building Inspection, within Community Development, administers fence permits and inspections. Appendix A, Chapter 10 contains the fence standards applicable within the legal city limits. A wall is a fence under that chapter.
Section 18-351 adopts the 2012 International Residential Code. The local fence chapter separately requires permits for fences. The City Engineer serves the floodplain-administration function. The building official and director consider fence variances, with appeals to the Board of Adjustments.
PERMIT AND APPROVAL REQUIREMENTS
• Permit before construction: Section 10-2 of the Alice Code of Ordinances requires a building permit before construction of any fence within city limits. The current fee schedule and fence application set a $50 fee. The application requests location, lot/block/addition, owner/contractor information, fence type, height and dimensions. A homeowner installing the fence must provide installation information; a survey may be required when the property line is unknown.
• Completed-fence inspection: Notify Building Inspection when the fence is complete. The building official inspects it and issues an acceptance card if compliant, or rejects it. The fence must continue to meet the ordinance afterward.
• Existing fences and replacement: Section 10-4 preserves fences predating the ordinance or an amendment, and fences on property later annexed. Reconstruction, modification, enlargement, extension, alteration or work other than maintenance is regulated by the ordinance.
• Fence variances: Submit a written request to the director. The director and building official have 5 business days to respond and decide case by case based on conformity with the subdivision/neighborhood. A denied request may be appealed under Board of Adjustments procedures.
• Temporary construction fencing: A construction-site protection/security fence may be approved with its duration and use schedule specified in the fence permit. Temporary barbed wire requires approval of its height, location and strand count.
• Floodplain work: A development permit is required for covered construction or land changes in special flood hazard areas under Chapter 38. Submit the required site and drainage information to the floodplain administrator before covered work, including any proposed watercourse change. The regulated area uses the applicable FEMA flood study/maps and revisions.
• Actual agricultural operations: Agriculture Code Section 251.0055 limits city requirements affecting qualifying operations within city limits. It requires clear and convincing evidence that less restrictive means cannot address the requirement’s purpose and that the requirement is necessary to protect nearby residents or persons on nearby public property from a listed imminent danger. Those dangers include explosion, flooding, vermin/insect infestation, physical injury, directly attributable identified contagious disease, loss of lateral/subjacent support, identified water-supply contamination, radiation, improper toxic-material storage, traffic hazards from crops/vegetation, and the specified weapons-discharge concern. The City must obtain and review a health-officer or consultant report addressing the hazards, necessity and manner of regulation, and effects on generally accepted agricultural practices. Its governing body must find by resolution that the requirement is necessary for public health, and the requirement must not otherwise be prohibited by the statute.
• Qualifying agricultural fence improvements: Section 251.006 covers fences and other agricultural improvements designed for animal/aquatic sheltering, restriction or feeding, produce/feed storage, or storage/maintenance of agricultural implements or equipment. An owner, lessee or occupant of agricultural land receives the section’s protection against specified governmental or other agricultural-land parties’ liability claims, nuisance treatment, suit or injunction when construction is not expressly prohibited by statute or a qualifying governmental requirement in effect when constructed. State and federal statutes remain enforceable. The land, use, improvement and applicable requirement must satisfy the statute; acreage or a tax designation alone does not exempt every residential fence.
FENCE PLACEMENT RULES
• Property-line placement: Section 10-3 expressly permits fences on property lines in R-2, R-3, R-4, R-6, C and D districts, subject to the height rules. That property-line permission does not list R-5. No fence, brace, guy wire, sign, light standard, vee arm, barbed-wire arm or attached structure may protrude over any property line. Establish the boundary from the deed, plat and survey; an existing fence, curb, ditch or tax/GIS line is not conclusive proof.
• R-1 front placement: In the R-1 one-family district, fences are prohibited in front of the designated building line. An exception applies on existing platted lots where a majority of the block’s lots had fences before June 13, 1983; the new fence must be compatible in height with those in the area.
• Streets, alleys and gates: Constructed and natural fences may not occupy, encroach upon or extend over a dedicated street/alley right-of-way. Gates must not open outward onto public right-of-way. Preserve applicable recorded public and private easement rights.
• Drainage and floodways: A fence must not interfere with drainage of contiguous properties. Maintain the flood-carrying capacity of altered/relocated watercourses. In A1–30 or AE areas without a designated floodway, the cumulative base-flood rise is limited to 1 foot, subject to the ordinance’s prior conditional-revision procedure. Floodway encroachments require no-rise analysis, with the separate prior FEMA Section 65.12 route where applicable. Water Code Section 11.086 separately prohibits natural-surface-water diversion/impoundment that damages another property through overflow, subject to its qualifications.
• Joint or attached fence removal: Agriculture Code Section 143.121 restricts removing a separating/dividing fence in which the person is a joint owner, or a fence attached to one another person owns or controls, except by mutual consent or the statutory process. An owner of an interest in an attached fence may withdraw it after 6 months’ written notice to the other fence’s owner, agent, attorney or lessee. An owner whose fence is wholly on that owner’s land may require another attached fence’s disconnection after the same notice period to its owner or specified representative. These provisions concern ownership and attachment, not every fence replacement.
• Pipeline easement construction: Health and Safety Code Chapter 756 separately covers construction on, across, over or under a pipeline easement/right-of-way, or work that physically affects or creates a risk to a covered pipeline facility. A contrary written agreement between the affected operator/owner and constructor also controls under Section 756.122. For covered work, the operator must receive construction notice and the work must meet one of the statutory routes: an operator determination of no increased risk; payment before proceeding of the reasonable, necessary and documented cost of protective improvements; or work under an existing written agreement. An 811 ticket is separate from this construction review.
• Excavation-law coverage and exceptions: Utilities Code Chapter 251 defines excavation as using explosives, powered tools or mechanized equipment to disturb soil 16 inches or more deep. Its notice exceptions include defined agricultural operations on private property and work by or for a person who owns, leases or holds a mineral leasehold interest in the land and also operates all underground facilities at the excavation site. The agricultural definition follows Tax Code Section 23.51(2). Emergency excavation may begin immediately when the statutory emergency conditions exist, with reasonable care to protect facilities and notice as promptly as practicably possible.
• Separate underground-pipeline rules: Railroad Commission rules cover movement of earth, including manual digging, more than 16 inches deep near the covered underground pipelines, subject to their own exclusions. A Utilities Code exception does not necessarily exempt that work. A pipeline locate ticket generally lasts 14 working days; refresh an expiring ticket for the area still to be excavated. A longer ticket life requires a written agreement signed and dated by both excavator and operator, retained by both. Required records, including locate tickets and positive responses, must be kept at least 4 years. Observe pipeline-marking, positive-response and damage-prevention requirements.
• Before digging fence posts: Request a locate through Texas811. For excavation covered by Utilities Code Chapter 251, give notice no earlier than 14 days before excavation and no later than 48 hours before it, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays. Follow the ticket’s start instructions, check operator responses and site markings, resolve missing or conflicting information through the current process, protect markings and excavate carefully. Request safe locating before digging even where an exception may apply. Privately owned service lines and some water/sewer facilities may need separate locating. An 811 request does not establish easement rights or replace permits or pipeline construction notice.
FENCE HEIGHT AND VISIBILITY RULES
• R-2 through R-6: Front-yard fences are limited to 4 feet and back-yard fences to 6 feet. Measure from the highest adjoining grade parallel to the fence. Determine the actual front-yard classification on a corner lot before applying these limits.
• C and D districts: Where the property is in a C or D district, front- and back-yard fences are limited to 8 feet, measured from the highest adjoining grade parallel to the fence.
• R-1 and side yards: The ordinary fence provisions do not specify a separate numerical R-1 fence maximum or one universal side-yard maximum. The R-1 front-building-line restriction and its legacy-fence exception remain applicable.
• Corner no-fence area: Section 10-3(c)(2) prohibits a fence of any height or type within or along a corner-lot triangle measured 15 feet each direction from the street-intersection corner of the property lines. This is a property-line measurement. Section 50-1 separately addresses corner vegetation/other structures over 3 feet above the roadway crown within its 15-foot right-of-way triangle, with its 7-foot tree-branch clearance exception; the fence-specific no-fence triangle still applies.
MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION LIMITS
• Wood, vinyl/PVC and chain-link: The fence chapter does not prescribe a general approved-material list for these common materials. It requires all fence materials to meet or exceed the Standard Building Code fire-zone standards referenced in Section 10-3(e). Wood boards and chain-link are expressly mentioned in maintenance requirements. The fence design and material remain subject to the applicable permit, height, placement and fire-zone requirements.
• Electric and barbed-wire fencing: Electrical fences and electrical attachments are prohibited within legal city limits. Permanent barbed-wire fences are prohibited. The express arm/vee-arm exception allows at most 3 strands with attachments at least 6 feet above ground; attachments count toward total fence height and cannot protrude across a property line. Temporary construction-site barbed wire follows the separate approval conditions above.
• Maintenance: The lot owner must paint as needed, repair weak/broken boards or posts and torn chain-link, trim natural fences and reset nails. Applicable weed and fence-line cleanliness requirements also continue.
• Pools and animals: A fence serving a private pool must satisfy the applicable residential construction and pool-enclosure requirements as well as the local fence permit. Animal enclosures must provide sufficient containment; a fenced yard must prevent escape and prevent a confined dog’s head from extending over, under or through the fence.
PRIVATE RESTRICTIONS
Recorded covenants, HOA architectural rules, private easements and maintenance or boundary agreements can impose independent requirements within Texas statutory limits. Public approval does not determine fence ownership, private access rights, maintenance obligations or cost sharing.
• Perimeter security fencing: Texas Property Code security-fence protections provide that a covered association may not adopt or enforce a restrictive covenant preventing an owner from installing security measures, including perimeter fencing, subject to the following retained controls. The section excludes condominiums under Chapters 81/82 and Chapter 215 master mixed-use associations. An association may regulate fence type and prohibit fencing that obstructs a defined license area, a public/community sidewalk, or a drainage easement/area. It may require a driveway gate at least 10 feet from the right-of-way where the driveway intersects a laned roadway. A restrictive covenant may prohibit fencing in front of the dwelling’s front-most building line.
• Existing fencing and enhanced security: Notwithstanding the retained controls, an owner may maintain perimeter or front-building-line fencing installed or constructed before September 1, 2025. The front-building-line prohibition does not apply where the owner’s residential address is exempt from public disclosure or the owner supplies law-enforcement documentation of a need for enhanced security. These protections remain subject to applicable public law and property rights.
• Protected pool enclosures: Property Code Section 202.022 protects a conforming enclosure that surrounds a pool, spa or other water feature, uses transparent mesh or clear panels in metal frames, is no more than 6 feet high, and is designed not to be climbable. It must conform to state/local safety requirements. An association may regulate appearance and color, but cannot prohibit the protected black transparent-mesh form in metal frames. The 6-foot dimension defines this statutory HOA protection, not a general Alice yard-fence maximum.
REVIEW AND ENFORCEMENT CONTEXT
Fence issues are typically reviewed during permit or approval review when required, and through complaint-based code enforcement. Examples include:
• Permit and completion review: Fence location, district, height measurement, materials, construction and completed-fence inspection. Alterations to grandfathered fences are subject to the stated work rules.
• Corners, drainage and access: The no-fence corner triangle, drainage of neighboring property, public rights-of-way, gate swing and applicable easement/floodplain conditions.
• Upkeep and private obligations: Fence maintenance and animal containment; private covenants, ownership and cost-sharing disputes remain separate from City enforcement.
USING THIS INFORMATION
This page provides general orientation on how residential fence rules are structured and applied within the City of Alice, Texas. Updated November 2026.
In addition to local fence rules, certain Texas laws apply statewide. See Statewide Fence Laws in Texas.
It is not legal advice and does not replace official statutes, ordinances, orders, permits, certificates, development approvals, applicable building-code requirements, surveys, recorded documents or professional guidance. Rules and interpretations may change, and application may vary with municipal or unincorporated location, applicable extraterritorial authority, zoning or special-area status, code adoption and amendments, site conditions, subdivision or plat conditions, easements, rights-of-way, drainage and floodplain requirements, historic or design districts, pool use, agricultural operations and stock laws, fence ownership or attachment, coastal or public-access conditions, utility and pipeline excavation requirements, and private restrictions subject to Texas law. Before purchasing materials or beginning construction, confirm current requirements and site-specific limitations with the City’s Building Inspection office and the responsible office for each applicable issue, and review applicable private agreements. If this page conflicts with controlling law, adopted regulations or official requirements, the controlling authorities govern. For legal advice or legal interpretation, consult a licensed attorney.