jakedaniel
Chirping
- Apr 4, 2020
- 41
- 85
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So I went online to copy the ordinance for a neighbor who wanted to start out with chickens and discovered that our City Council voted to change the ordinance regarding keeping chickens back in August, doubling the minimum distance from the coop to any neighboring residential structure from 100ft to 200ft and also imposing a restriction on the amount of chickens a person can have on their property depending on size using some convoluted "points" system. The restriction on the size of the flock doesn't affect me, under the new law I'm allowed a max of 5 and I only have 4, but the distance restriction puts me in violation for sure, because although there's a good part of my backyard more than 100feet from the walls of all 3 of my neighbor's homes, there is no part of my yard that's 200ft away.
I contacted the City of Baytown Legal Dept and they agreed that since I could prove that I had my chickens and coop in the backyard prior to August, that our property would be "grandfathered" under the old ordinance, and after I asked for it, they agreed to send me a letter on City letterhead stating that we're grandfathered and including with the letter a printed overhead shot of our lot with the area of the backyard more than 100ft from all neighbors homes outlined just in case someone decides to complain 10 years down the road. So that's the good news, that I don't have to get rid of my flock and can keep on keeping on. The bad news is that this pretty much means that no one in Baytown City Limits can have backyard chickens unless they have a lot size of one acre or more which means 99% of folks around here can't have them. Sucks, but it is what it is.
I contacted the City of Baytown Legal Dept and they agreed that since I could prove that I had my chickens and coop in the backyard prior to August, that our property would be "grandfathered" under the old ordinance, and after I asked for it, they agreed to send me a letter on City letterhead stating that we're grandfathered and including with the letter a printed overhead shot of our lot with the area of the backyard more than 100ft from all neighbors homes outlined just in case someone decides to complain 10 years down the road. So that's the good news, that I don't have to get rid of my flock and can keep on keeping on. The bad news is that this pretty much means that no one in Baytown City Limits can have backyard chickens unless they have a lot size of one acre or more which means 99% of folks around here can't have them. Sucks, but it is what it is.