Ohio's new fence laws. Unintended consequences again.

Just read my latest copy of "The Ohio Woodland Journal".

There is a story (Is New Timber Trespass Legislation on the Horizon in Ohio) about State Representative Ross McGregor working on (among other issues) logging issues around people knowing where they are and whose property they are on when removing timber.

This brings me to the unintended consequences part:

We had a property line fence law in Ohio that worked for many years. It simply required one to establish a fence around your property. You and your neighbor shared in this cost. This forced us to know where our property lines were. It also forced neighbors to agree (one way or the other) where the property line was.

There was some complaining about the law. Mostly from folks that moved here from another state or folks that moved out of town into the rural areas of the state. One of the arguments against the old law was that it wasn't fair for someone that didn't own livestock to have to build a fence around their property.

My contention is and was that it is always fair when the rules apply to everyone and the rules are known before one purchases property that is affected by the rules.

One of the main problems with the old law was lack of enforcement. Having Township Trustees required to hold hearing on fence line disputes was a recipe for absolutely no action. They are too worried about getting reelected and keeping their OPERS to force the required actions of the law onto their neighbors.

One more reason Townships need abolished in Ohio. (seeds for another post)

Basically, the old line fence law said you shall build a fence. The new line fence law says you may build one if you wish. The new law (of course) has a very complicated set of rules.

So, back to Rep. McGregor and his Timber Trespass legislation.

Some of the fixes he suggested included requiring an expensive survey before any logging operations commence.

If we would have left our line fence law as it was, all we would have to do the address the logging trespass issue is to enforce the law.

Which leads me to continue to believe that our government spends a lot of time fixing the problems that they themselves cause by trying to fix another perceived problem....all without considering the untended consequences of their actions.