San Antonio Expert Fence builds and repairs fences in Leon Valley, from privacy fences along the back of the yard to gates and iron fences across the front of a larger lot.
San Antonio Expert Fence plans a Leon Valley fence to Leon Valley's own fence code. Leon Valley sits on San Antonio's northwest side, and the street across the way may be San Antonio's, but inside Leon Valley's city limits the fence code and the fence permit are Leon Valley's.
Those rules change a few things you'd notice from the sidewalk. On a house lot, front fences stay low, back fences can go taller than San Antonio's standard limit, and chain link stays out of the front yard.
Leon Valley is a small, settled city with some lots of an acre or more, and neighborhoods that back onto Huebner Creek and its drainage greenways. Those are the yards this page walks through, along with the deer that come with them.
Leon Valley updated its fence rules in December 2021. Here's what they say for a house lot, in plain words.
A fence in your front yard can be up to 44 inches tall, which is a little under 4 feet. That's the height of a picket fence or a low iron fence, the kind that marks the yard and helps keep a small dog in without closing off the house.
Chain link isn't allowed in a Leon Valley front yard at any height, even though San Antonio allows it out front. If chain link is what you had in mind for a dog run or a long back line, the fence code's chain link rule stops at the front yard, so it doesn't rule out chain link along the sides or across the back.
Along the sides and across the back of your lot, a fence can be up to 8 feet tall. San Antonio's limit for side and back fences is 6 feet outside a handful of special cases, so a Leon Valley yard can go noticeably taller than a yard a few streets away. If a neighbor's second story looks down into your yard, that extra height can make a real difference.
A new fence needs the city's permit before it goes up, and applying for it is part of our job. The permit spells out the fence's height, length, materials, style and location, so before we apply, we settle those five things with you: where the fence runs and how far, how tall it is in different parts of the yard, what it's made of and what it looks like. Once the permit is in hand, the fence goes up the way it was approved.
Some Leon Valley lots run to an acre or more, and the code has a rule just for them. On those lots, depending on the zoning, a front fence can go up to 6 feet, as long as the taller part stays open.
Anything above 44 inches has to be open ornamental steel or ornamental iron, so you can still see the house and the yard through the top of the fence. Below that height, the acre-lot rule doesn't name a material, though chain link is still out of the front yard, the same as on any house lot.
The code also allows stone, brick or stucco columns along the fence, set at regular intervals and no closer than 15 feet apart. The one place they can sit closer together is beside a walk gate, where a pair of columns frames the opening.
Picture a deep front lawn with a driveway coming in from the street and a walk gate up toward the front door. A fence that meets the rule could be black iron up to 6 feet, with stone columns spaced along the run and a pair of them on either side of the walk gate. A driveway gate fits into the same plan, either one that swings by hand or one with an opener, and we plan it with the fence so the two look like they belong together.
The taller front fence depends on two things: the lot's zoning district and its size. A lot that looks large may still fall outside the rule, so we check both before anything is drawn. If your lot doesn't fall under the acre rule, the front fence stays at the house-lot height, and we'll show you what looks good there.
These are typical installed costs at Texas prices for the fences and gates that go up around a Leon Valley house.
| Item | Typical price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Pine privacy fence, 6 ft | $19–$39 | per linear foot installed |
| Cedar fence | $15–$42 | per linear foot installed |
| Wood picket fence, 3–4 ft | $15–$29 | per linear foot installed |
| Walk gate | $190–$780 | each, installed |
The city's permit fee comes on top of the fence. Try the cost calculator.
Huebner Creek runs east to west through Leon Valley, past Raymond Rimkus Park and the Huebner-Onion Natural Area, and below the Bandera Road bridge, a stretch of it is now city land with a hike-and-bike trail that connects to San Antonio's greenway trails. Some neighborhoods have their own walking paths along the drainage areas too. If your yard backs onto any of these, a couple of things about your back fence work a little differently.
The city's 2025 flood briefing names July 2021 as a recent major flood on Huebner Creek. A Bexar County flood control project widened the creek's floodway above and below Rimkus Park and the natural area, and the same briefing reported no flooding outside the floodway where that project was completed.
Leon Valley has its own floodplain rules, and they limit what can be built in the mapped floodway. Those rules don't name fences. So before a post goes in on a creek-side lot, we find out whether your back line falls inside the mapped floodway and what, if anything, the city's floodplain office needs for a fence there. If it does need something, we take care of that along with the permit.
The trail side is the side the public sees, and Leon Valley's code says the finished side of a fence faces the public view. On a wood privacy fence, that means the smooth face of the boards goes toward the trail.
Deer are part of living in Leon Valley. The city's own parks page tells hikers in the Huebner-Onion Natural Area to expect them, and for years people fed the deer in Raymond Rimkus Park.
In 2023 the city council took up a proposal to ban feeding deer in city parks and on city land along Huebner Creek and its drainage areas, the second time it had discussed the idea. When the mayor laid out the reasons, damage to gardens and fences was on his list. The council tabled the proposal, and the city has put up signs in the park asking people not to feed the deer.
When deer are the problem, the height of the fence is the first thing to look at. In a wildlife study that tested wild-caught white-tailed deer against fences of rising height, a fence of about 5 feet stopped none of them from jumping it, and a fence of about 8 feet stopped all of them. On a Leon Valley house lot, a side or back fence can be built to that height.
If your yard backs onto the natural area or the creek, the back line is the first place we'll look. A fence around the vegetable beds can be all a garden needs, and it's a smaller job than a full back fence. We'll go around the yard with you, see where the deer are getting in, and talk through whether a garden fence or a taller back fence makes more sense.
The front yard stays low on a house lot, so a front fence isn't going to keep deer off your front plantings. If the deer are mostly in the front beds, we'll tell you so before you spend money on a fence there.
The length comes first, since fences are priced by the foot, and the price table on this page gives the typical range for each kind. Then come the height, the material and the gates. Two things Leon Valley's code allows can add to a job: a side or back fence taller than San Antonio would allow, since a taller fence takes more material, and on an acre lot, an iron front fence with a run of stone or brick columns. If an old fence has to come out, that's part of the same price. Once we've measured the yard, you'll have one price for your own fence.
No. Leon Valley has been its own city since 1952, when residents incorporated after learning San Antonio was preparing to annex the area. It has its own police department, fire department and public library, and fence permits come from Leon Valley, not San Antonio. It sits on San Antonio's northwest side, so it's easy to cross the city line without noticing. For a fence, the line matters, because the rules and the permit on one side are different from the other.
The finished side. Leon Valley's fence code says the finished side faces the public view or the street, so the side the street and anyone walking by see is the good-looking one. On a wood privacy fence, that's the side without the posts and rails showing. We set the fence up that way from the start, so you don't have to think about it, and on a fence between two back yards we'll talk through which way it faces with you before it goes up.
Not for breaking today's height or material rules. Leon Valley's code lets a fence that went up before the current rules stay where it is, even if it's taller than allowed or built of something the front yard no longer allows. What the code doesn't allow is making that fence bigger. So if you're thinking about adding a section or running the fence further along the yard, we'll look at what's there against today's rules and show you what the new part can be.
Leon Valley can treat a fence that's in bad enough shape to hurt someone as a public nuisance. The written notice gives you 30 days to repair it, remove it or take it down, and if the work isn't done, the city can do it and charge the property for the cost plus 25%, and an unpaid charge becomes a lien on the lot. If you've had a notice, send it to us with your request. We'll look at the fence, tell you whether a repair will take care of it, and plan the work around the date on the notice.
Here's what we take on for Leon Valley homes, from new fences and repairs to gates and stain.
We take fence jobs in the cities around Leon Valley too. Those cities write their own fence rules, San Antonio included, and they don't always match Leon Valley's.
If your yard backs onto the creek, sits on an acre or has deer in the garden, mention it when you write. It's one of the first things we'll look at when we come out to see the fence line with you.
San Antonio Expert Fence is a fence company in San Antonio, Texas, for homes, businesses and HOAs. We repair fences and build new ones, and every job starts with a free visit and a written price.
Each city around San Antonio writes its own fence rules, and we plan every fence to the ones where your home is.
