Fence Permits in Grayson County — Sherman, Denison, Gunter, Bells, Van Alstyne, Howe, Whitesboro and Pottsboro

There is no single Grayson County fence rule. Each city sets its own, and the differences are large enough to matter — a fence that is straightforward in one town needs a permit and a site plan in the next.

What follows is what we have been able to confirm from each city’s own published material. Rules change, and this page is not a substitute for asking your city. Where we could not verify something, we say so rather than guessing.

Sherman

Sherman requires a building permit for a fence or screening device, and the work is inspected by the city. A detailed site plan also goes to the Development Services department for review before work begins.

• Side and rear property lines: screening fences in a residential district are limited to eight feet.
• Front yards: no fence, hedge or screening device may exceed four feet, and it must be decorative with openings across at least fifty percent of its area. This applies on ordinary residential lots — not only to commercial property.
• Chain link and woven wire mesh in a front yard: expressly not counted as decorative, and prohibited.
• Patio screens and walls serving a purpose other than line fencing may exceed six feet inside the allowable main building area, up to ten feet.
• Metal panel fences are not permitted in any district.

The chain link point is the one that catches people, because a low chain link run along the street is exactly what many owners assume is the cheap, uncontroversial option in a front yard. In Sherman it is not an option at all.

How these rules meet the ground itself is covered on our wood fence installation in Sherman page, and the front-yard rules are a big part of why ornamental iron does so much work in this city.

Denison

Denison publishes clearly, and carries one threshold that surprises people.

• Maximum height: eight feet.
• Past the front of the house: four feet maximum, and it must be fifty percent open.
• A permit is required for new fence construction, replacement of an existing fence, and repair of an existing fence involving twenty feet or more.
• Application: a site plan showing the fence location with dimensions from property lines and other structures.
• Handled by: Building Inspections.

That twenty-foot repair threshold is the one to watch. Replacing a run of storm-damaged panels along one side of a yard passes twenty feet very easily, and a lot of people reasonably assume a repair does not need paperwork.

The city also publishes its fees: a residential fence permit is $50, and a commercial one is $100, per the city’s posted fee schedule. That is worth knowing before anyone quotes you a “permit handling” line item several times that size — the permit is one of the smallest parts of what a fence actually costs here.

What those rules mean at the fence line is covered on our wood fence installation in Denison and ornamental iron in Denison pages.

Denison’s fence ordinance carries further detail, including on materials. We have seen conflicting information online about material restrictions in Denison — including material that appears to describe Denison, Iowa rather than Denison, Texas — so we are not going to repeat specifics we could not verify from the city itself. Ask Building Inspections.

Gunter

Gunter publishes the most detailed residential fence rules of any city in the county, and they are stricter than most people expect. This is the one town where we can tell you what a fence may be before anyone visits.

• A permit is required for any fence. The ordinance is blunt about it — it is unlawful to install or erect a fence anywhere in the city without first applying for a building permit and having it issued. This is not limited to new construction.
• Application: the city’s form, with two complete sets of plans and two plat plans.
• Published fee: the master fee schedule lists a residential fence permit at $95.00.
• Maximum height: eight feet in a residential district.
• Front yards and streets: no fence or wall in the required front yard of a single-family lot adjacent to a public street, and no residential fence closer than fifteen feet to a public street — with a stated exception where continuous corner lots adjoin. Corner lots are where this bites.
• Permitted materials: masonry, wrought iron, wood, or other suitable permanent materials.
• Chain link, barbed wire and electric fencing are prohibited as perimeter fencing — except for containing farm animals on parcels of one acre or more.
• Vehicle gates set back at least twenty-five feet from the front property line.
• Sight lines: nothing thirty inches or taller may obstruct a driver’s view within twenty-five feet of a street intersection, or ten feet of an alley.

That chain link prohibition is the one to know before pricing anything. Below an acre it takes the cheapest option off the table entirely, which is why wood and wrought iron do most of the work in town — and why ranch fencing in Gunter is a different conversation that starts at the one-acre line.

One thing we are deliberately not quoting: a pool-barrier height. Gunter’s code carries two different figures in two different sections, and resolving that is the city’s job rather than ours. Ask them.

Bells

Bells is the strictest town in the county on fence height, and it is the one that most often surprises someone replacing an old fence.

• Maximum height in a residential district: six feet, in the side or rear yard. Not eight. Every other city here allows eight, so a like-for-like replacement of an older, taller fence is frequently not available.
• Front yards: fences are not allowed, with a single exception — a decorative wooden picket or split rail fence up to three feet.
• Which way it faces is in the code. All exposed posts must sit on the inside of the property, with the finished side facing out. This is a rule, not an etiquette.
• Materials: wood, metal, brick, stone, or vinyl having the appearance of wood — worth reading twice if you had a smooth white vinyl panel in mind.
• Barbed wire and electrified fencing are not permitted in a residential district. Unlike Gunter, there is no acreage exception written into that subsection.
• Nonresidential districts are allowed eight feet in the side and rear yard.
• Retaining walls are capped at four feet, must sit at least two feet inside the property line, and have to be stepped or tiered above that height — which matters in Bells because a lot of the ground here is on a grade.

On whether the fence itself needs a permit: the city requires one to erect or alter a structure and routes plan review and inspections through an outside firm, but its published permit material does not name fences specifically and does not publish a fence fee. We are not going to invent either. Ask City Hall for your address.

The six-foot ceiling changes fence design more than it sounds — our wood fence installation in Bells page covers what it means in practice, and vinyl in Bells carries its own wrinkle: the code only permits vinyl that looks like wood.

Van Alstyne

Van Alstyne is a home rule city, which gives it substantially more control over its own planning and development standards than a general-law town has, and its fence provisions sit within the zoning chapter of the city code.

The practical reality here is different from the other four towns. Van Alstyne is overwhelmingly new-build, and on a new subdivision lot the city ordinance is frequently not the binding constraint. The subdivision’s recorded restrictions and the builder’s approved plat usually specify height, material, color and placement more tightly than the city does — and both apply simultaneously.

Because the code has been revised repeatedly as the town has grown, do not rely on what a neighbor was told two phases ago. Confirm current requirements with the city for your address. The covenant side of this — what boards approve and in what order — drives most wood and vinyl work in Van Alstyne.

Howe and Whitesboro

Both are small cities where fence work goes through city hall directly rather than through a layered development services process. That usually means a faster and simpler path than Sherman or Denison — but it also means far less is published online, and requirements have to be established by asking rather than by looking up.

We have not been able to verify specific published height limits for either city, and we are not going to invent them. Call the city.

For both, there is a more important question first: is the property inside the city limits at all? A large share of fencing around Howe and Whitesboro is on land outside them, where no city ordinance applies and the governing constraints are county requirements and whatever deed restrictions are recorded against the tract. Establishing which side of the line you are on is the first step, not a detail — which is why ranch fencing around Whitesboro starts with the boundary rather than the wire, and why a Howe back yard is usually the simpler job.

Pottsboro

Pottsboro runs permits through the city’s building services function, with City Hall as the contact and an online portal for applying and registering. What the city publishes about permits does not address fences specifically — there is no published height limit, setback or material rule for us to quote, so we are not going to quote one. Ask the city for your address.

There is a second approval here that exists nowhere else in the county. Land along Lake Texoma is federally owned in places, and private use of that shoreline land falls under the US Army Corps of Engineers and its Shoreline Management Plan rather than under the city. If a fence line runs anywhere near the water, the first question is not how tall it can be — it is where the government property line actually sits. People do discover, occasionally at some expense, that the ground they assumed was theirs to fence is not. Both wood and ornamental iron in Pottsboro are shaped by that shoreline more than by anything the city publishes.

Two approvals, not one

Whatever city you are in, remember that a city permit and an HOA approval are entirely separate things with different rules, different timelines and different people. In a covenant neighborhood the HOA is frequently the stricter of the two, and it is the one more likely to make you take a fence down. We cover that in a separate guide.

And before the first hole

Call 811. Free, required across Texas, and it takes a couple of days to come back. Fence posts go deep enough to find utilities, and finding one the hard way is both expensive and dangerous.