Village May Permit 8-Foot Deer Fences

After receiving complaints of deer devouring thousands of dollars worth of plantings, the Southampton Village Board on Thursday set a public hearing date for a law that would allow residents to install deer fencing with a permit.

While village code restricts the height of front yard fences to 4 feet and side and rear yard fences to 6, the proposes legislation would permit 8-foot-tall fences — tall enough to keep agile deer from jumping over. Applicants must prove that a fence is the sole reasonable method to keep deer off their property. Proposals in recent years to cull the village deer population using guns or bows and arrows, with Department of Environmental Conservation nuisance permits, never came to fruition.

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Fences will require the approval of the Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation. The board will deny any application if they find that the fencing will be detrimental to the value of the property or any neighboring parcel within 250 feet, according to the legislation. Aesthetics are a concern, and hedging to conceal the fencing will be required. Fences must be black or natural and may not be otherwise painted.

Under the initial draft of the legislation, which Village Attorney Rick DePetris said he modeled after ’s existing law, applicants must submit a $250 fee and a perimeter survey.

Village resident Margaret Logan, who has been urging the board for months to tackle deer problems, took umbrage at the proposed fee and suggested that the village should be paying homeowners for taking care of a municipal problem. “It’s going to cost us time and energy to buy the fences and I think the $250 extra is a little gratuitous,” she told the Village Board on Thursday.

The law is set to expire after five years after enactment, giving the Village Board the options of letting it expire, extending it or making it permanent. If the law were to expire, existing deer fences would be deemed “nonconforming.”

The legislation was forwarded to the Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation to offer feedback prior to a public hearing date being set, Village Administrator Stephen Funsch said.

Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that a public hearing date had been scheduled.