PLEASE help! Chicken (and other animal) Ordinances - Residential Districts vs Non Residential Distri

[cblakley0531]

Hi All!

Our family is currently in the process of house hunting and I currently own 5 hens. I've been searching all over this page and all over the internet to find the ordinances regarding animals and I haven't found much. We live in Washington State, Olympia area to be more specific. I found the ordinances that a BYC member posted back in 2012 but I was hoping for something a little more current. The ones that I found for Thurston County off of their site says that chickens in residential districts are PROHIBITED. How do I find out if a home is within a "residential district"? The house we are currently thinking of putting an offer on is in Rochester and it sits on just under an acre. I also would love to have other animals like goats (which are PROHIBITED according to the same site), rabbits (ALLOWED), and more but don't want to buy this place for the property to have these animals, then find out I can't have them at all! :-(

Any help would be great appreciated! Thank you so much in advance!

 

[LindaA]

This might help you: https://www.backyardchickens.com/newsearch?search=Olympia+wa

 

[chicken-whisperer]

Congratulations on your wonderful family. Your Realtor should know where the chicken zoning areas are located The local feed store can also give you a zoning experts phone number, to call with the property ID# to check.

 

[cblakley0531]

@LindaA and @chicken-whisperer - you guys ROCK! Thank you all so much for the help! I'm also wanting to know about other animals as well - such as goats, rabbits maybe, who knows, I just would love to have some options!!

 

[crossties]

A note about trusting realtors...
Our realtor was sweet and helpful and completely wrong, lol. She said animals on large lots were fine because "people in cities have them nowadays". We knew better, so I didn't bother trying to help her out.

It's been years since I have been to Olympia, but I think it has pretty much built up like Portland/Vancouver has, with lots of outlying areas all mixed into each other so you can't really tell where a city ends and county begins? When we lived in Vancouver, the city had the ordinances, not the county. Not sure if it is the same where you are looking, but a single call to the county office will tell you. If the city does have the authority, it is worth the time to get the city ordinance out (ours is online on the city website) and do a document search for any key words, (goat, livestock, chicken, poultry, etc.). Yes, city employees can give you what they think, but, honestly, you want to see where it it written down.

In the city we live in now, our ordinances do not allow for any domestic livestock or poultry. Period. Does not matter about lot size, nothing. Every city in our tiny little county is like that. However, 4 miles away, in Dallas county, I think every single city there allows at least 3 hens. Garland just started allowing 4 hens, plus either one or two goats from what I heard. Getting ordinances changed is not impossible, but it takes lots of dedication and being involved with how things happen.

Each city, btw, has a map, usually at city hall, that shows the exact borders of their current city limits as well as where their ETJ (future city limits). It's worth using those to help you know where you are willing to look for property.

 

[cblakley0531]

You all ROCK! Thank you so much! House hunting have been SO stressful because I refuse to give up my chickens for a house (how's that for crazy chicken lady haha) and most of the houses in our price range are within city limits or have HOAs that don't allow them :-( Guess we will be house hunting for forever! LOL!