AVONDALE, PA – August 27, 2026 – PRESSADVANTAGE –

A Pennsylvania homeowner can need a permit for a four-foot fence in one township and no permit at all for a six-foot fence a few miles down the road, a patchwork that J&A Fence, a family-owned fence store and installation contractor serving Chester County, is now handling for its customers through a permit coordination service.

Almost nothing about fence permitting in Pennsylvania is settled at the state level. The commonwealth is divided into 2,560 municipalities, made up of 956 boroughs, 1,547 townships, 56 cities and one town. Each of those governments writes and enforces its own zoning ordinance, and a fence that clears every requirement in one of them can violate three in the next.

The state building code does not resolve the question so much as hand it off. Pennsylvania’s Uniform Construction Code, the construction standard that applies statewide, exempts fences under six feet from building permits altogether, which leaves height limits, setbacks and application requirements to municipal zoning. Enforcement is uneven even there. More than 90 percent of Pennsylvania municipalities administer the construction code themselves, and in the ones that opted out, residential enforcement falls to private third-party agencies that the property owner has to hire.

Chester County contains 73 of those municipalities, and two of them sit next to each other in J&A Fence’s service area. London Grove Township requires a zoning permit for any fence installation, regardless of height or material. Kennett Township requires one only for fences taller than six feet in side and rear yards or taller than four feet in front yards, asks for a homeowners association approval letter alongside the application when the property sits in one, and requires under an ordinance adopted in February 2023 that fences be installed with their visible structural elements facing the interior of the lot, which means the finished side has to face the neighbor.

Crossing the state line changes the answer again. New Castle County, Delaware, where the company also installs, exempts fences from permits with one exception for swimming pool barriers, holds most residential fencing to a six-foot maximum and rules out corrugated metal, plywood and barbed wire on residential lots under an ordinance signed in September 2024.

The permit is rarely the only obstacle. Pool barriers carry a separate standard on both sides of the line, and under the model pool safety code adopted across the region a barrier has to stand at least 48 inches tall, close and latch on its own at the gate and leave no gap wide enough for a four-inch sphere to pass through. Township applications also turn on details a homeowner has no particular reason to know, among them drainage easements that no fence may sit in and sight lines that have to stay clear at driveways and intersections. Property lines are their own problem, and in older neighborhoods they often cannot be located without hiring a surveyor, which Kennett Township tells applicants outright.

J&A Fence prepares and submits the application as a paid addition to the installation, and homeowners who would rather file on their own receive the drawings and specifications their municipality asks for. The filing is handled by the company’s office staff, which keeps hours from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. J&A Fence is a registered Pennsylvania Home Improvement Contractor, license PA096517, and has worked in the area since 2012.

“The rules are not complicated. They are just scattered, and nobody tells a homeowner which version applies to their address,” said Joe Giunta, owner of J&A Fence. “We have seen fences that were built well and still had to come out, because the height got measured from the wrong grade or a permit was never pulled at all. That is an expensive way to learn a zoning ordinance.”

Homeowners can learn more about J&A Fence and its services by calling 484-368-2206 or visiting jafence.com. Photos of the company’s completed fence projects are available for review on its Google Business Profile.

About J&A Fence

J&A Fence is a family-owned fence materials store and installation contractor based in Avondale, Pennsylvania. Founded in 2012 by Joe Giunta, the company serves Chester County, northern Delaware, and Cecil County, Maryland. J&A Fence installs vinyl, aluminum, wood, chain link, and split rail fencing for residential and commercial properties, along with gate installation and permit coordination. The company is a registered Pennsylvania Home Improvement Contractor (PA096517) and a HomeAdvisor Screened and Approved, Top Rated, and Elite Service provider, and has been voted Best of Chester County for fencing every year from 2021 through 2025. Learn more at https://jafence.com/.

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For more information about J&A Fence Inc., contact the company here:

J&A Fence
Joe Giunta
484-368-2206
office@jafence.com
8997 Gap Newport Pike, Avondale, PA 19311

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