Fence Installation in St. Augustine Beach, FL
Jax AA Fencing provides fence installation in St. Augustine Beach, FL, where the rules come from the city rather than the county. This is a separately incorporated city on Anastasia Island, with its own land development code setting fence height, corner visibility, and permitting, and lots that were platted narrow long before anyone was building the houses that sit on them today. We are veteran owned by a nine-year Army veteran, licensed and insured, and we install aluminum, vinyl privacy, wood, and pool fencing plus full fence replacement on the St. Johns County barrier island. Estimates are free and on site, materials are US made, and any job over $2,000 gets $250 off.
A City Code of Its Own, and Lots With No Room to Spare
Fencing on Anastasia Island is a geometry problem before it is a construction problem. The island is not wide, with the Atlantic on one side and the Matanzas River on the other, and a large share of the residential blocks between A1A Beach Boulevard and the water were subdivided into narrow lots, and the houses that replaced the original cottages fill more of them than the originals did. That leaves a strip of yard on each side, a short back line, and very little slack between the house and the boundary. Six feet of solid fence set on a line like that swallows usable width fast, and a gate that swings the wrong way can be unusable the day it goes in.
The second complication is that the city writes its own rules. Cross the St. Augustine Beach city limits and the fence ordinance changes, so what a neighbor built a mile up the island under county rules is not proof of what you can build. Corner lots take the brunt of it, since both street frontages generally count as front yards, and the height you were planning along the side street may not be available at all. We check the current city requirements against your survey before quoting, because on a lot this tight the legal envelope decides the design.
Height, Corner Sight Lines, and Where the Line Really Is
Three rules do most of the damage to a fence plan on this island, and none of them are about materials. First, height is not a single number. Front yards are held lower than side and rear yards, and on a corner lot both street-facing yards are usually treated as front, so the taller fence you pictured wrapping the side street is not on the table. The practical answer is a stepped plan: the tall run where the code allows it, a transition, and a lower or open section where it does not, designed as one continuous line instead of a fence that simply stops. Second, the corner sight triangle has to stay clear. Near intersections and driveways, anything tall enough to block a driver’s view is restricted, so we run see-through picket or drop height through that zone rather than leaving a gap that defeats the point of fencing at all. Third, the property line is almost never the sidewalk. Platted right-of-way commonly extends behind the walk, sometimes by several feet, and a fence built to the concrete can end up standing on public ground with a removal notice attached. We pull the survey, measure the actual envelope, confirm the current numbers with the city before we quote, and lay the run out inside it. On a lot this narrow that also means deciding gate swing early, since a gate that opens over the right-of-way or into a neighbor’s setback is a problem you cannot fix with hardware. Most installs finish in 1 to 2 days once the permit is in hand.
Materials That Work Inside a Tight Legal Envelope
Aluminum is the material that solves the code problems rather than fighting them. Because aluminum fences are see-through, they can often run at full height through a corner sight triangle and along front yards where a solid fence would be capped short, and the same panels meet Florida pool barrier code, which matters on a barrier island full of small pools and rentals.
Vinyl privacy is what most owners want along the side and rear lines, where the taller allowance applies. A vinyl privacy fence gives you a private yard on a lot where the neighbor’s window is thirty feet away, it never needs stain, and it carries a limited lifetime manufacturer warranty.
Wood suits the older cottage streets and lets you match a height step cleanly, since board fencing can be built down to a transition without looking cut off. Our wood fences use US-made lumber and a post spec built for an exposed island lot rather than a sheltered suburban one.
Where the front of the property is doing the work, premium fence styles cover decorative low fencing, upgraded gates, and mixed runs that keep the front elevation open and the back yard closed, which is usually exactly what the code wants anyway.
Year-Round Homes, Rental Properties, and Island Businesses
Residential
Most of our residential work on the island is privacy fencing on narrow lots, pool enclosures, and pet containment for owners who need every inch of the yard to count. We lay out the run against the survey and the city’s height map rather than eyeballing it off the neighbor’s fence, which is what keeps a project from failing inspection after the concrete is set. Plenty of these homes are rentals or second homes, so we send photos as the work moves. Our full coverage is on the St. Johns County fence page.
Commercial
Commercial fencing here covers rental complexes, small businesses near A1A Beach Boulevard, and properties bordering public land where the boundary has to be exact, including sites near Anastasia State Park. Multi-unit properties tend to have the tightest setback math on the island, since parking, dumpster screening, and pool barriers all compete for the same few feet. We handle permitting and inspections, and we work in one or two day windows so a business or a rental turnover is not sitting idle.
Fence Installation in St. Augustine Beach Starts With the Code
The estimate. We come out, walk the boundary with the survey in hand, and measure the envelope you actually have: front versus rear height, the sight triangle at any corner or driveway, and where the right-of-way sits behind the sidewalk. Then you get a design and a number on the spot, free, with nobody chasing you afterward. For rental portfolios, condo associations, and managed property on the St. Johns County barrier island, our HOA and property management fencing page covers how we run multi-property approvals.
Approvals. We pull the city permit and prepare any association submission ourselves, with a site drawing that shows the height steps and the setback dimensions the reviewer is going to look for first. Getting the drawing right the first time is most of the speed. If an association is involved, installation typically follows 2 to 3 weeks after that approval comes back.
Install day. The line gets laid out to the permitted dimensions and rechecked against the sight triangle before a hole opens, because a corner run set two feet off is a tear-out, not an adjustment. Height transitions get built as designed rather than improvised on site, gates get hung to swing inward where the right-of-way is tight, and every panel goes in inside your line. Most fences here finish in 1 to 2 days. If you are also looking at a property across the inlet, our Vilano Beach page covers that stretch. Wisetack financing averages 7 to 10% APR, and military and first responder discounts apply.
City Rules St. Augustine Beach Homeowners Ask About
It depends which yard the fence is in, because the city sets different limits for front yards than for side and rear yards, with the front allowance being the lower of the two. That is why so many island fences step down as they come toward the street instead of running one height all the way around. The exact figures live in the city's land development code and can be amended, so we confirm the current numbers with the city for your specific lot before quoting rather than repeating what was true a few years back.
The city does. St. Augustine Beach is separately incorporated, so fence permits, height limits, and setback rules come from the city rather than from St. Johns County, even though the county surrounds it. This trips people up constantly, because a friend a few blocks north in unincorporated Anastasia Island is playing by a different rulebook. We pull the correct permit for your address and handle the inspection, so the fence that gets built is the fence that got approved.
Corner lots are the strictest situation on the island, for two reasons. Both street frontages are generally treated as front yards, so the taller side and rear allowance does not apply along the second street, and the sight visibility triangle near the intersection restricts anything that blocks a driver's view. The workable answer is usually a see-through aluminum run or a reduced height through the triangle, tied into full-height privacy fencing where the code allows it. We design that transition at the estimate so it looks intentional rather than chopped off.
Usually yes along interior lines, but the line is rarely where people think it is. The platted right-of-way along a street commonly extends several feet behind the sidewalk, so a fence built to the concrete walk can sit on public ground and be subject to removal. On a narrow lot those few feet are also the difference between a usable side yard and a corridor you cannot get a mower through. We work from the recorded survey and stake the actual boundary before any hole gets dug.
Yes, and that is one of the most common sources of confusion on Anastasia Island. Inside the city limits you follow the city's fence ordinance and pull a city permit. Outside them, on unincorporated parts of the island, St. Johns County rules and permitting apply instead, and the height and corner requirements are not identical. Two houses on the same road can genuinely have different options. We verify which jurisdiction your parcel sits in before we design anything.
It can. Florida's Department of Environmental Protection regulates construction seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line, and a permanent fence in that zone generally needs state authorization on top of the local permit. Not every beachside lot is affected, since the line runs inland of the dune by varying distances, so the first step is establishing where your parcel sits relative to it. We check that early, because it changes both the timeline and what can be built, and finding out late is the expensive version.
Projects typically land around $41 to $51 per linear foot installed, though small island lots often price differently than the footage alone suggests. Short runs carry more corners, gates, and height transitions per foot than a long suburban line does, and those are the expensive parts of any fence. A mixed design that uses aluminum where code caps height and privacy panels where it does not often costs less than forcing one material to do everything. Estimates are free on site, and $250 comes off any job over $2,000.
What Island Homeowners Say After Final Inspection
Build the Tallest Fence the Code Actually Allows You
On a small island lot, the difference between a good fence and a frustrating one is usually how well it was fitted to the rules, not what it was made of. We measure the envelope, design the height steps and the corner transitions to work as one line, and pull the city permit ourselves. Since open picket often runs full height where solid panels get capped, our aluminum fencing page is worth a look while you are deciding. See finished projects in our gallery, check our service areas, or call (904) 330-4829 weekdays 8am to 4pm ET for a free on-site estimate. Veteran owned, licensed and insured, and $250 off any job over $2,000.