City paid for illegal fence in Red Hill
October 19, 2006

The Stoney Creek News is reporting that city staff endorsed the construction of an illegal fence in Red Hill Valley. The $20,000 structure was paid for by the city as part of its noise mitigation program for the valley expressway, but violates Conservation Authority rules.

The newspaper says the affected homeowner “regularly consulted city staff, who dropped by and took pictures as a private contractor re-graded his backyard and erected the fence.”

Authority chair Chris Firth-England apologized to the homeowner “on behalf of all agencies” and told him that “ when you went in numerous times to see (city) staff to get approvals for the step-by-step actions that you did take, someone could have raised the notice to you that one little thing was missing.”

Rather than tear out the fence, the Authority board agreed to an annual monitoring to watch for any problems with it. They expect the city will pay the costs of the monitoring.