City Issued a Citation and claims we aren’t allowed to have chickens due to neighbor’s complaint. What are my options?

[paradisepentacoop]

Needling your neighbors makes living tense and turns this whole thing into a Cold War. I personally wouldn't recommend that route, as I want to have peace at home instead of fear/resentment

 

[Sally PB]

Once you cross the "tit for tat" bridge, there is usually no going back unless/until one of you moves. That might be a long time.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Q&A: Is a City Ordinance a Law?

I watched people breaking an Ordinance get violation Citations with heavy fines until they corrected whatever the violation.

 

[All4Eggz]

Please don't do that, Ben. Do not lower yourself. Remember the Sermon on the Mount, and Whose you are. I know your standards.

Once you cross the "tit for tat" bridge, there is usually no going back unless/until one of you moves. That might be a long time.

Definitely won’t be taking it out on them.
Clearly there’s a reason they reported it and maybe to them it seems right to do it. And to be fair we were not in compliance with the ordinance so I can’t really be mad at them, they don’t understand the connection we have. And maybe it was with ill intent but that makes no difference I’m not going to start a war over that.

 

[h2oratt]

For now yes.
The fight isn’t over.

I asked the guy about one of the city council members who has been known for fighting the right to backyard chickens for people in our city. I asked if it is worth it to get in touch with him and he said yes. That’s our only chance right now. We can’t fight this any other way but to change the zoning laws.

I will be rehoming my chickens hopefully to relatives so that in the slight chance that we may be able to take them back again, we can do so without issues.

Seems like this is hopeless.

but I’m not giving up just yet. Still a little bit of faith left in me.

Exactly what I said. If it is the law the only thing you can do is change it.

 

[TheGreatChickening]

We know a family who has gone a tad overboard from ordinance. They knew they were going to do so beforehand, so they went to the neighbors and asked them all if they would like fresh eggs. All the neighbors were apparently thrilled, and so far no one has complained.

I agree about trying to get the law changed.

 

[Kiki]

Definitely won’t be taking it out on them.
Clearly there’s a reason they reported it and maybe to them it seems right to do it. And to be fair we were not in compliance with the ordinance so I can’t really be mad at them, they don’t understand the connection we have. And maybe it was with ill intent but that makes no difference I’m not going to start a war over that.

 

[h2oratt]

Yep good job

 

[All4Eggz]

When it comes down to actually giving them away I didn’t think it would be this hard.

 

[All4Eggz]

So after contacting the city council member who made the proposition to allow chickens in residential areas last year, I was told to contact the city planner, which I did.
He finally returned my call today.

Because we are in a Residential A area, obtaining a license to have the chickens isn’t possible, according to the planner.

The process would have to be petitioning for a zone change, and only when that gets approved, then you can file for a special permit.

The city planner said it’s really difficult to achieve this, so his advice was to contact the city council member again and request that his proposal be brought up again.
Apparently the proposal actually timed out and “expired” so it never really for accepted or denied. Supposedly because it was an election year, nobody really wanted to deal with that so it wasn’t a priority.

I will talk to the council member again to discuss bringing up the proposal again, and the planner told me another route is doing a city petition through the city website. With just 10 registered voters petitioning for an issue, it forces the city to have a hearing to resolve it.

So this is great news actually. If the proposal was never rejected that means there is a high likelihood that it may get approved this time around, if the council member is willing to go through the process of bringing up again.
Planner said this would be the best thing we can do right now is get involved in bringing it up again because, he said, if the council member wanted to he could begin tomorrow and the process could be much faster than expected.


So I’m celebrating over here. If there’s a hearing I will definitely get involved.

Upon reaching out to the council member who made the proposal last year, I have yet to hear from him after a few days. I’m thinking he’s not willing to make the proposal again.

Which leaves me with petitioning.

I’m going to go to city hall tomorrow to talk to someone about the process for petitioning.