Chicken Ordinance passed the first vote in Providence!!!

[xyresicchick]

Quote:
Without meaning to offend anyone.....the smaller "surburban" towns are being taken over by what we call "city slickers". Those are the people that want "their" piece of the country but don't want the smells,sounds,etc. that go along with it. They are also the ones that pull their car directly into the garage and go into the house without ever talking with the neighbors. We have had a lot of those kind of people move into our part of Kentucky over the last 20 years. They are the ones that keep screaming for more police protection.more ballfields and parks for their kids,more zoning restrictions but scream even louder when it's pointed out that those things require more tax money. After all,one of the major reasons they moved to a rural area was lower taxes,right?

If I sound bitter.......I am! Why do these backsideho##es move out here if they're just going to try and change the way things are? Let them stay in the city!!

us city people don't want them either~!!!


next election day let's vote to send them to their own private island somewhere.... somewhere they're not allowed to leave!

It's a shame that those people are even breeding!

 

[imusa76]

Providence Journal Today

New law allows raising of hens in Providence backyards

07:32 AM EDT on Thursday, September 30, 2010

By Philip Marcelo

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Every once in a while, Camille Morrison would hear that city officials were in her South Providence neighborhood, and she’d have to spring into action to hide her family’s secret.

Morrison would run out to the yard, gather the evidence up in a box, and shuttle it into her house to stay unseen until the officials were gone. Now a new law has passed, allowing her to speak openly: she raises chickens.

“I’m hugely relieved,” says Morrison, who has kept chickens on her half-acre property off Eddy Street for nearly eight years. “I’m out of the chicken closet.”

Morrison is not alone. After years of hiding in the shadows, chicken owners in the city are going public, now that they have the legal right to raise chickens in their backyards.

“Mostly, I’m relieved,” says Kate Lacoutre, an East Side resident who has owned four chickens since March. “I really didn’t want to advertise that I had them before.”

The City Council gave final approval on Sept. 16 to an ordinance that would allow residents to raise up to six chickens, making Providence the first urban community in the state to pass legislation similar to chicken ordinances in other cities across the country, including New York, Portland, Los Angeles and Baltimore. Mayor David N. Cicilline signed the legislation into law Monday. About a dozen communities, mostly in Rhode Island’s densely populated urban core, currently prohibit farm animals, such as chickens, on residential properties. The majority of cities and towns allow them.

Providence’s new chicken law comes as other communities are considering revising local laws to accommodate a burgeoning interest in locally grown food.

“Many local ordinances were made for a different era and have not kept up with local needs,” says Kenneth D. Ayars, chief of the state Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Agriculture, who has supported the push of legalizing chicken-raising in Providence and elsewhere. “Communities are recognizing that there is a need for an environment that encourages local agriculture.”


While it’s hard to know exactly how many families own chickens in the city, city officials generally acknowledge that people have been keeping chickens in their backyards for years in violation of city ordinances.

In some of the city’s ethnic communities, chicken-raising was a common practice. Later, with the movement toward organic foods, families in some of the city’s wealthier enclaves took to raising hens.

For at least five years, advocates say, there had been interest in reversing the ban on chicken, though no formal proposal was ever presented to the city.

The movement took on new energy in late May, after East Side resident Christine Chitnis was ordered by the city to get rid of her two chickens.

She and others founded PECK (People Encouraging Chicken Keeping) and gathered close to 800 petitions, which they presented to the council, along with letters from more than a dozen local organizations.

It was their efforts — developing a proposed ordinance amendment, lobbying council members, and turning out by the dozens to council meetings this summer — that ultimately persuaded the council to change the law.

Supporters of the effort say that encouraging people to grow or raise more of their food at home helps strengthen the local food system, especially in light of growing concerns about food safety and energy use.

They also argue that locally grown foods, such as home-raised chicken eggs, provide a cheaper and healthier food source for low-income communities.

“It’s about going back to the way things should be,” says Morrison.

The coming months will show whether the benefits outweigh the potential problems in reintroducing chickens to the urban environment.

Opponents, including the Defenders of Animals and the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, say the law could open the door for chicken abuse and neglect, exacerbate the city’s rat problem, and create an unregulated, home-grown egg market that could lead to an increase in cases of food poisoning and other health hazards.

“It’s one thing to be raising chickens in rural Foster, but it’s another thing to start allowing them in congested urban settings,” says Dennis Tabella, of Defenders of Animals. “There are just going to be too many problems and the law will just not be enforced properly.”

Supporters of the ordinance counter that the “factory farms” where many eggs are produced are far more abusive than raising them in a backyard. They also note that a number of provisions were placed into the ordinance to specifically address concerns.

The law, for example, limits residents to one hen per 800 square feet of lot area and a maximum of six hens on any property. It prohibits roosters, the slaughtering of chickens on residential properties, and keeping chickens in the house.

It calls for chicken coops to be well-vented and predator-resistant, with enough room for at least two square feet per chicken. And it states that chicken waste must be composted and feed properly stored.

The state Department of Health supports the measure; so too does city Animal Control Director David A. Holden, who is charged with enforcing the new law. “It looks to me like if they follow that ordinance, then we won’t have many problems,” he said.

Says Chitnis: “We’ve written a law that keeps chickens safe and people safe. At the end of the day, it comes down to the responsibility of the owner. It’s no different than having a dog or a cat.”

[email protected]

you have to read some of the comments that People are leaving on the ProJo website about this.
They have No clue..

I live next to Providence, and I'm Glad to see this

 

[landshark]

Quote:
Wow, just read through the comments, what a load of ignorance. I'm just learning about raising chickens and know that their arguments against the ordinance are ridiculous. That's not to say you will not always have that small percentage that push the boundaries but that happens in every aspect life.

I know I read we don't talk politics here but I find it ironic that one of the anti-chicken commenter's had a Gadsden Flag as an icon. As a somewhat Conservative Libertarian myself, I am all for any step closer to the freedom of allowing me to do what I want with my property as long as it is not infringing upon my neighbor.

Anyway, Great job to those that made it happen, hope more good comes out of this for the rest of the state.