Issues concerning the placement of fences have prompted the Koochiching County Board to consider changing a county ordinance.

The board, following a committee discussion this week, is expected to remove the word fence from the definition of a structure contained in the county’s zoning ordinance. The word change, along with other changes, has been recommended by the county Planning Commission.

County staff are determining whether a public hearing on the ordinance change is needed, or whether it can be done administratively.

The board is expected to again review the issue.

Because a fence is now defined as a structure in the ordinance, property owners would be required to place fences 10 feet or more from the property line, as is required under the ordinance for buildings and other structures.

However, the issue becomes complicated because in 1974, the Planning Commission agreed to administer fences through policy rather than amending the ordinance, with the intent that the policy would supersede the language in the ordinance, explained Dale Olson, county Environmental Services director.

The policy, which has been followed since the 1974 Planning Commission action, calls for a 1-foot setback from the property line, unless property owners reach agreement with adjacent property owners for placement of the fence on the property line, he said. The policy also restricts fences to a maximum height.

Two fence issues in the recent years — one at the county’s Point Of Pines Beach on County Road 125 and the other at a church in Ray — have prompted commissioners to consider whether the county should be involved in regulating fences.

Fencing is regulated under the state’s Partition Fence Law, local zoning laws and other laws regarding particular agriculture operations, according to information provided to the board by attorney Scott Anderson of Ratwik, Roszak and Maloney, Minneapolis.

“If an issue does not fall under any of these statutes, then it is left to whatever remedies the civil law provides private persons under various circumstances to seek to use on their own,” wrote Anderson in a brief to the board.