New member from Florida with News from Manatee County

[FLChickidee]

Residential Backyard Chickens​

Manatee County interprets all chicken keeping as an agricultural use, and has generally taken enforcement action on chicken keepers in residential zoning districts. Currently, Manatee County allows chickens in zoning districts designated as Agriculture (A & A-1).

The County has received requests from citizens to allow chicken keeping in residentially zoned backyards. Those citizens typically are interested in participating in their own food production. However, there are generally two sides to this issue: those citizens who want to keep chickens for egg production and those citizens who are concerned about the effects chickens will have on their neighborhood.

The typical concerns from residents regarding backyard chickens in residential areas are smell, noise, rodents, public health concerns, manure, cleanliness of coops, etc.

To properly address the concerns, a well written ordinance can prevent potential issues by establishing guidelines for chicken care and maintenance such as limiting the number of chickens, placing coops in backyard only, having a minimum setback from adjacent neighbors, placing feed in rodent proof containers, not allowing the owner(s) to sell the chickens, eggs or manure, and perhaps prohibit chicken keeping in specific residential areas (ex: multi family, mobile home parks, RV parks).

Manatee County Wants To Hear From You!
Public Workshop
The County will conduct a public workshop to receive citizen input regarding amending county rules to allow backyard chickens in residentially zoned properties.​

South County Library
6081 26th Street West ~ Bradenton, Florida
Tuesday, October 30, 2012 ~ 6:00pm

Comments
Public comment forms will be available on line and at the workshop. All public comments will be included in the public record. Please indicate if you are
IN FAVOR or NOT IN FAVOR of backyard chickens in residential areas.

Need More Information? (941) 748-4501​

Kathy Manning x 3877 [email protected]
Kathleen Thompson x 6841 [email protected]​

www.mymanatee.org​

Manatee County is exploring the possiblity of changing the "chicken laws" for the parts of the county. Here is the information from a flyer I received.

 

[liz9910]

from California! Hopefully the vote is in favor of allowing chickens!

 

[redsoxs]

Greetings from Kansas and

! Great to have you here! Ah, the politics of poultry! Sure hope it goes your way! Best of luck to you!!!

 

[Red Barn Farms]

Best of luck to you!

 

[sumi]

Good luck!

 

[Redangler]

Did anyone attend this meeting? I had a previous commitment but I was wondering if anyone else attended.

 

[DaikaijuTorira]

Did anyone attend this meeting? I had a previous commitment but I was wondering if anyone else attended. 

I had been planning on going, even though it won't affect me in the city limits I'd still like to support the effort to legalize chickens in the county and hope they manage to get it. But I got confused when the information about the public workshop disappeared from the county website, and with no other info about it to be found at the time, ended up not going.

According to the latest update on the Manatee CLUCK facebook page, it appears the public meetings for October and November were "postponed at the request of the the Director of Building and Development Services." (Name removed, you can go there to read the full post.)

They aren't finished preparing yet and haven't set a new date. :/