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Snow fences are not required of Mono landowners

February 20, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

Snow fences may make winter driving safer, but there are no rules that govern their installation in Mono.

Or likely any other municipality, for that matter.

Mono resident Anthony Hosein asked town council when it met on Feb. 11 if there’s a bylaw that property owners have to ensure snow doesn’t accumulate on the town’s network of roads.

“Many roads have become unsafe due to blowing snow and no snow fences from the farm fields to control this issue,” he said.

Mayor John Creelman said there is no such bylaw on the books.

“There is no bylaw in place that would require somebody to put up a snow fence or a row of trees or something like that to address drifting across town roads,” Creelman said.

Matt Doner, the town’s public works and road director, confirmed the mayor’s assertion.

“We don’t currently have a bylaw,” Doner said.

He deferred to Mike Dunmore, the town’s CAO and former public works director, for any information on past arrangements with property owners about trees to hinder drifting snow.

Doner said he isn’t sure how far any kind of relationship with landowners regarding living snow fences, which is a row of trees to disrupt blowing snow.

“But what about just when you’re trying to clear away the driveway where the plow has been?” Councillor Melinda Davie said. “Or is that just that I know it’s polite not to (but) you can’t put that into the road.”

She said people are supposed to keep snow off the roadway when they clear their driveways.

“You’re supposed to move that off to the side,” Davie said.

“I think that’s almost a separate issue from this notion of the blowing snow and lack of snow fences,” Creelman said. “But you’re right. You’re not supposed to put that snow out into the travelled portion of the road.”

Doner said, as per a municipal bylaw, residents who move snow onto a road or highway could incur a $250 fine. There are also prohibitive stipulations in the Highway Traffic Act, which is provincial legislation.

“So that’s not permissible,” Doner said.

This seems to be a winter of more snow than usual. Regardless, town road staff focus on the areas where drifting from blowing snow is common.

Dunmore said the municipality did have a snow fence program.

“The living snow fence budget line did not catch on like we wished it would have with farmers not wanting to cloud some of their areas with trees and so forth,” Dunmore said. “But we still work with farmers and landowners to try and get snow fences up to the best of our ability.”

But there are no rules to compel property owners to erect snow fencing.

“There’s the program where we hope that homeowners would let the town subsidize some trees on their property and then there’s the Public Works initiative that they work with the landowners separately,” Dunmore said.

Coun. Ralph Manktelow said the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority participates in living tree fence planting as part of its tree planting program. Trees have to be about 50 feet back of the road allowance.

And that’s the problem, he said.

“Farmers don’t like to have to plow around them because it upsets the continuity of the plowing and they lose a little bit of the land,” Manktelow said.

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