Montréal does not publish a single residential height or permit rule that safely covers all its boroughs. The City’s fence-and-hedge procedure asks the reader to select an arrondissement; it then supplies that borough’s limits for the front, sides and back, allowed materials, setbacks and circumstances requiring a permit. A property in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, for example, has a permit trigger for certain fences in a heritage sector or for a pool enclosure, while the borough page says other ordinary fences need no permit if they comply. Its published example uses 0.90 m at the front and 2 m along the rear and side lines, with exceptions. Those figures belong to that borough and should never be copied onto an address in Verdun or Le Plateau-Mont-Royal.
The Ahuntsic-Cartierville instructions also call for a clear visibility triangle of 7 m along each public way at an intersection, and say a fence must stay on private land. A hedge cannot hide access to a fire hydrant, bus stop or other public equipment. These are examples of why a front hedge, a low ornamental fence and a privacy screen may have different results even on the same block. Before buying panels, select the actual arrondissement in the City service, locate the civic and legal boundary, and mark the driveway and corner if there is one. Ask the borough permit counter about heritage controls and the proposed materials when the page flags an exception.
A pool fence deserves its own check against the borough procedure and Québec’s residential-pool safety rules. If a contractor offers to replace a boundary fence while adding a pool, show the borough both scopes; an ordinary no-permit answer does not carry over to a safety enclosure. Send a sketch with height, material, location and any retaining wall when authorization is needed. Keep the borough’s written answer with the job documents because a Montréal street address without its arrondissement is insufficient to verify a specific legal limit. The date here means the borough-selector procedure was reviewed, not that every borough’s zoning was converted into one citywide number.
Last verified: September 28, 2026. This Montreal guide summarizes the linked municipal sources for planning; the property’s zoning, survey and any required approval decide the actual design. How we research fence rules →
