EDMONTON -- Residents in the Cameron Heights neighbourhood are celebrating news that the city is taking steps to modify a fence that has impaled several large animals.

"It's been three years of fighting the developer and trying to get the city involved," Melanie Wilson with the homeowners' association told CTV News Edmonton. "We're ecstatic that something's finally going to be done."

Three deer and a moose have impaled themselves while trying to jump the spiked fence in recent years.

Now the city has committed to making the fence safer.

"The City will be proceeding with ordering the materials needed to retrofit the fence on City-owned properties and the 24 properties where homeowner permission has been granted so that it no longer poses a danger to wildlife in the adjacent environmental reserve," a spokesperson for the City of Edmonton said in a written statement.

Retrofitted deer-impaling fence

Permission is required to make any changes on private property. The homeowners who live along the fence were sent a letter in December. So far, 12 of the 36 have not yet replied.

The work on approved properties should be completed late this summer or early in the fall.

The city's design and construction standards are also being updated to exclude this type of fence, which the homeowners' association was happy to learn.

"Not only is it unsafe in areas with a lot of wildlife, it's not safe for children," Wilson said. "It's just not a good fence to have anywhere."