In what it says is an effort to ensure safety, the Libby City Council has taken some heat from the public about some proposed code changes.

One relates to what is called a visibility triangle. It is intended to give the driver of a vehicle an unobstructed view of other vehicles, pedestrians or other obstacles while approaching an intersection. The city council is planning some city ordinances to ensure this, but due to public pressure one section will be struck from the draft.

The Libby City Council has one more reading before approving changes aimed at clearing up what is already established practice and to make city code sections 12.40 and 17.32 uniform.

During an attempt to clarify several city ordinances, the council received some criticism of the draft changes announced in the April 17 council meeting.

The original proposed changes included a maximum 4-foot fence height for all front yards, but in the May 15 meeting this section was removed. This means that visibility requirements for corner lots, outlined in the definition of a visibility triangle, will still be in effect.

Mayor Peggy Williams did the first public reading on May 15 with one more scheduled in the next meeting on June 5.

Among some spelling changes and minor tweaks, the main change is the clarification of a what a sight triangle is. Permissible fence heights have not changed.

The substance of the ordinance is as follows: fences or walls may not exceed six feet in height in any residential district. Open weave fences may be permitted up to six feet in height.

A visibility triangle is described as an area being formed by measuring 80 feet along each of the centerlines of the street right-of-way at an intersection and then connecting the two points with a straight line.

Property owners can have a wire mesh fence within the visibility triangle. These fences can be more than six feet in height, but an open rail fence can be up to four feet in height. There are specifications on the rail requirements available in the city code.

In order to assure drivers have a clear line of sight there are some restrictions of tree sizes allowed within a visibility triangle.

When the initial draft was proposed it included a restriction for all fences in front yards. Several people cited grievances with the ordinance's requirement for all fences to be four feet or less in height.

During the public comment period at the April 17 meeting, several city residents spoke.

"I'm just wondering why we're telling people what they can do with their property?" Gale Burger said.

She also cited concerns about people and deer being able to hop over a shorter fence regarding the fence specifications.

"Six-foot fence, you can't have one in your front yard. Why not? What is it impeding?" Mike Meyers said.

"If I have a four-foot fence, it's not secure. A dog can jump over it; people can look in," John Bebee said.

Several other people expressed concern about the proposed ordinances during the public comment period for the draft changes.

City Council member Kristin Smith noted that any change to the existing ordinance would not be retroactive.

The change of the Libby municipal code is meant to amend conflicting ordinances regarding visibility, or sight triangles, she said.

"The zoning commission wants to spend more time developing a fence ordinance. This particular issue, the visibility triangle came through the ordinance committee, and so on the floor we struck the other changes and we just kept it simply to reference the visibility triangle," Smith said in a recent interview.

The confusion for enforcement has caused non-uniform enforcement of the city code, Mayor Williams said in the first reading of the ordinance at the May 15 city council meeting.

"Since we were working on the section that covers fences, we wanted to clarify what has been established practice relative to height and opacity in front yards," Smith wrote of the original ordinance's intentions.

Ordinances become effective 30 days following adoption, Smith said.