My experience is if you find a house, look at what type of fence the neighbors have, if everyone has the same style fence, that is likely what is required.

However, sometimes there are 2 different architectural styles mixed in one neighborhood. For instance the colonial style homes have one style, and another type of architecture across the street has another style fence. You probably can't mix and match.

I can't recall seeing it anywhere in HoCo lately, though it's something we, we being my wife 😅, make at home so generally we're not looking out for it. I think Jumbo Jumbo down in Rockville might have it though.

Murazzi food truck, very simple but very good

About 4 years ago.

Out of curiosity, when did you sell your home?

You seem like you have a clue - where can I find Three Cups Chicken (San Bei Ji / 三杯鸡 )? My go-to was lost in the explosion a few years ago.

Or buy in a non-HOA community in Ellicott City. There are a few. The real estate listings for houses being sold should indicate that there's no HOA.

Since this is such a big deal breaker for you, I would suggest narrowing your search exclusively to Ellicott City and Columbia outparcels. There are a lot of lovely homes that are right on the edge of Columbia so you can easily use all the amenities and enjoy the general area. Columbia is a great place to live but you can get nearly the same experience living two miles away and not having to worry about your dogs.

Yes and not that unusual. There are a lot more neighborhoods in Columbia that aren’t part of the CA than many realize. And you can easily find this out when you’re looking as these homes will proudly state “NO HOA!!” In their listing description.

Been trying it that way for 6 months or so and it's been frustrating to think a place looks great and then scour the internet to find guidelines only to discover it's not going to work for us because of fencing requirements. I was hoping for a way to narrow down where to look in the first place.

This is very helpful thank you! That's so frustrating I'm sorry you went through such a hassle

Thank you! That's both very helpful and very disappointing. We may be looking for a "unicorn" that doesn't exist then, and that's very good to know. We love Columbia and all the trails, lakes, and restaurants but I'm not sure what we are looking for in a home exists there :(. Is there not a lot of pushback from homeowners about this? I can't imagine in a huge town that there aren't other homeowners with dogs that hope for fences higher than 48". I know if my dogs saw a deer they could clear one of those split rail 48" fences without missing a beat!

Sharing my experience with fencing from when we lived in Long Reach as a warning of how much CA hates fencing.

We bought a house with some 6 foot fencing on one side of the property. At closing we received the standard letter that the seller obtained from the village that blesses the property with no extant covenant violations.

7 years later we go to sell our house and obtain the same letter. We had done some exterior (non-fence) changes to the house while we were there but did all by the book with approvals and didn't expect issues. Long Reach decided they no longer liked the 6 foot fence and opted to withhold the letter from us, threatening the sale.

I can't say how thankful I was that Google Street view had a photo that included the 6 foot fence that was dated before our original purchase AND we had that letter from our purchase closing.

Long Reach still fought us over the fence, but they did eventually release a letter to us that had a special addendum re. the fence because of all the documentation we had. Long Reach also told us that they fought over the fencing because it was the only violation they could find on our property, and that they had to find something because they had received an anonymous type-written complaint about one of our previously-approved exterior changes.

Long story short, CA, Long Reach especially, HATES fencing.

You could buy outside of Columbia Association. If it’s a county parcel, 6ft fences are allowed. At least that’s what everybody has in my neighborhood.

This is the right answer.

In my experience, we were given the set of covenants when we signed a contract to purchase a home. We had 3 days to fully review and ask any questions about the covenants with the option to back out of the contract during that window. I don’t know if that’s still the case.

That said, it sounds like the fencing for your doggos is a priority. So don’t get hung up on Columbia, check Ellicott City and nearby communities. You might find a more suitable home. Good luck!

Like I said. 48" is the standard height allowed in all the villages that I'm aware of. A 6' fence rarely exists. If it does, it's possibly long grandfathered in due to other circumstances. If you're buying a home that is CA assessed, DO NOT expect to be able to get a 6' fence.

I'd say concentrate on finding a place. Then look into that particular village's guidelines. If it's even covered under a village. There are plenty of 'outparcels' which are independent of CA and the villages within Columbia. They don't have the same restrictions.

I live in the Jeffers Hill neighborhood, part of Long Reach. I have no idea which HOA I'm in, because I've never had to deal with them.

Good point.

I only looked at houses that already had a fence. Also, when I adopted my second dog, the Howard County Animal Shelter came and inspected the fence. They found that the split-rail fence was more than adequate.

Best Neapolitan pizza - Facci Best loaded pizza - Blaze laurel

Coalfire and Neo Pizza were meh

‘Sort of’ close by is Mama Romas in odenton. Best pizza I ever had in the area.

Interesting, thanks, didn't know about that!

Your other option is to buy an outparcel. You can tell which ones are not governed by CA because the street signs are green instead of blue.

A lot of the ones we have looked at don't have them at all or they aren't sufficient for our needs. It's harder than it sounds to find one with a fence already built, we've only seen maybe 3 out of the 40-50 houses we've toured!