Franklin Lakes to consider law banning new spiked fences

Franklin Lakes Trying to find a solution to deer impalements in the borough, officials appear to be straddling the fence between animal protection and practicality.

Council members and officials at a Feb. 4 meeting favored passing a law that would prevent property owners from erecting spiked fences in the future, but would not require residents to remove such fences that are already standing.

Some deer have attempted to leap over the fences, but instead have fallen short and landed on the sharp spikes atop the fences, leading to a slow death.

Officials said they need to consider the cost for property owners to remove fences, which caused four deer deaths last month and an estimated six annually in recent years, according to Mayor Frank Bivona.

"You have a situation here where someone's spent an enormous amount of money to put up some of these fences," Bivona said. "What's our ability to go back and say, 'You can't have this fence,' after we allowed them to put this fence in?"

Borough Administrator Gregory Hart said the borough currently has no ordinance that is specific to spikes or fences.

However, Bivona said, the borough has attempted "to hang [its] hat on" an existing ordinance as a means to get residents to remove spiked fences.

The borough's current property maintenance ordinance prohibits "exterior surfaces or parts of buildings or structures containing sharp, rough or projecting surfaces or objects which might cause injury to persons coming in contact therewith."

"If there's something that's egregious out there, I think that we should go after it," Bivona said.

Bivona said there are many spiked fences in the borough, but many of them have small spikes that are not a threat to deer. He said the new ordinance would target fences that have "big impaling-type spikes."

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Franklin Lakes to consider law banning new spiked fences