Fence Company in Eagle Rock, CA

Our contractors cover Eagle Rock, and most of the work here is replacing a tired back yard fence on a flat lot, which is quick and predictable. What is worth knowing is that crossing the line from Glendale changes who issues your permit, and that changes how long the job takes.

Eagle Rock borders Glendale on the east and the boundary is one of the least visible around. The streets run straight across it. What changes when you cross is not the neighborhood but the government, because Eagle Rock has been part of the City of Los Angeles since 1923.

That matters more than it sounds. Everything published about fence heights, permits and design review in this area is written about Glendale, because Glendale is the city people search for. None of it governs an Eagle Rock address. Los Angeles city rules do, and permits come through the Los Angeles building department.

So the Glendale rules that dominate any search on this subject, the seven foot permit line, design review starting at three feet, and the near ban on front yard fences, are the wrong rules for this side of the line. Check the requirements for your own address rather than working from what you read about the city next door.

A Big City Department Works Differently

There is a real difference in how the process feels. Glendale's planning office serves a single mid sized city, and it is often possible to get a specific answer about a specific property from a named person without much trouble.

Los Angeles handles an enormous area and a matching volume of work. That is not a criticism, it is arithmetic. The effect on a fence project is that lead times and the rhythm of getting questions answered are different, and a contractor who genuinely works both sides will quote them differently.

If you are getting bids from a Glendale contractor and a Los Angeles one for the same Eagle Rock fence, the difference in their timelines may tell you more about who has actually worked here than the price does.

Bungalows Set The Look

The neighborhood filled in mostly between the 1910s and the 1930s, and the housing shows it: Craftsman bungalows, Spanish style houses, modest lots, deep front porches and detached garages down a driveway.

Those houses came with a fence style that suits them, which is low horizontal wood, open ornamental metal, or brick piers with lighter material between. What sits badly against them is a tall solid panel, which is a modern suburban shape on a house that predates it by seventy years.

Back yards are a different matter and a solid six foot fence behind the house is completely normal. The design question really only applies to whatever faces the street, which is also the part most likely to be limited by the code.

Flat In The Middle, Steep At The Edges

Eagle Rock sits in a valley between hills, and the center of it is reasonably level ground that fences without complication. Post holes go in cleanly, a crew can bring a machine to the line, and a straightforward back yard replacement is a one to two day job.

The edges are another matter. Toward the hills the streets climb sharply and lots carry real grade. On those properties a solid fence has to be stepped down in sections, which leaves gaps underneath, or the ground has to be held by a retaining wall with the fence sitting on top of it.

Once a retaining wall is involved the job changes category. Anywhere in California, a wall holding back dirt becomes an engineered structure once it reaches about four feet from the top of the wall to the bottom of the footing, and that brings drawings, review and a longer calendar.

The Rules That Do Not Change At The Line

It helps to keep the two kinds of rule apart. City rules on height, permits and design review genuinely change between Glendale and Eagle Rock. State rules apply the same in both.

Civil Code 841 decides who pays for a boundary fence and requires thirty days written notice. The pool fence rule sets the barrier at sixty inches with a gate that swings away from the water and latches itself at sixty inches or higher. And state law requires the 811 call at least two working days before anyone digs.

Those hold on every street in the state. Anyone who tells you the pool fence rule is a Glendale thing, or that a post hole is too small to need an 811 call, is wrong in both cities equally.