Public right of way
The city-controlled strip along your street.
What it is
A public right of way is the strip the city or county controls along your street: the road, the sidewalk, and — this is the part that surprises people — often several feet beyond what you would guess, back from the curb.
Having one across your frontage is normal and usually already priced in. The thing worth knowing is exactly how far back it extends, because anything you build inside it can be required to come out.
How to check for it
- Ask your city for the right-of-way width on your street, then measure it back from the curb yourself. It is frequently further than owners assume.
- Check your plat map for the dedicated right of way.
- Look at where the sidewalk, utility poles, and fire hydrants sit — they are usually inside it.
- Ask the city which maintenance split applies on your street: it is set by local ordinance and varies street by street.
How to request maintenance
- The split is set by ordinance: the agency usually maintains the traveled way and its own infrastructure, while you are often expected to maintain the parkway, verge, or sidewalk frontage — sometimes including liability for its condition.
- Report damaged sidewalks, dead street trees, or broken curbs to the city; keep a dated record of the report.
- Do not build walls, fences, or permanent landscaping inside the right of way without checking — permitted work inside it can still be ordered removed.
- If the city does work in front of your house, photograph the parkway before and after.
One free thing you can do today: Ask your city for the right-of-way width on your street and measure it from the kerb. Free, and it often moves the line several feet from where people think it is.
What you would do with this
This is an illustration of how the report is used, not an account of something that happened. Nobody here is a real homeowner, and what any particular situation is worth or costs depends on facts this tool cannot see.
- The situationYou are about to replace a fence, or you have inherited one, and you do not know how far back from the kerb the public right of way actually runs.
- What the report showsThat the right of way commonly extends further from the kerb than owners assume, which parts of the frontage you are usually expected to maintain, and that permitted work inside the right of way can still be ordered removed.
- What you doMeasure back from the kerb and ring the city to ask the right-of-way width for your street before the fence goes in. Where something is already built, ask specifically about an encroachment agreement.
- What that gets youThe fence goes on your land the first time. Where it is already in, you find out whether the city will permit it to stay — a question with a formal answer, asked before a letter arrives rather than after.
How it affects home value
A public right of way across your frontage is normal and usually priced in. The thing worth knowing is how far it extends back from the kerb — it is frequently further than owners assume, and improvements built inside it can be required to come out.
When this goes wrong
The hedge that was not the property line — Asheville, 2022
What happened
In January 2022 the City of Asheville, North Carolina notified at least 25 property owners — ten on one road, fourteen on another — that their fences, cement walls and rock walls sat on the city’s maintenance right of way, and gave them 30 days to move them or face fines. One letter set the penalty at $50 a day. A homeowner, Chip Plemmons, said he had taken it for granted that a row of hedges marked his boundary and that he had never had a survey done. The city attorney said the city’s position rested on a survey built from property deeds and earlier surveys.
Why it happened
The mechanism is the invisible line: the right of way commonly extends further back from the curb than owners assume, and a structure inside it stays removable however long it has been there. The city attorney described the second half of the problem — staff generally discover an encroachment only when something forces them to look, and the example he gave was a garbage truck that could not get past. That is why these arrive as a letter about a wall built years earlier.
Could this happen at your property?
If you have never measured your street’s right-of-way width back from the curb, anything you have built near the street may already sit inside it, and a row of hedges or an old fence is not evidence of where the line runs. The free protection is the tape measure and the phone call to the city. Where something is already built, ask specifically about an encroachment agreement: many cities, Asheville included, have a formal process that can let a structure stay — normally on terms that leave you responsible for it. Local ordinance governs, so the answer is your own city’s.
Sources
Keep in mind
These are the arrangements that are usual for this kind of easement. They are not a reading of your easement document and not legal advice — your document controls, and it can say the opposite of anything here. Use this to work out which questions are worth asking, then confirm the answers against the recorded instrument or with an attorney licensed in your state.