Leadville, CO. Proposed Conditional Use Permit *Ideas*?

[spokemanstack]

Hi everyone. I've been working with the Leadville City Council and now Planning and Zoning to establish legal ownership of chickens in Leadville. After a couple of months of meetings Planning and Zoning will be voting to present a proposed Conditional Use Permit to the City Council for final approval next month. The City Administrator has forwarded me what has been drafted so far. If anyone is interested in reviewing and giving some feedback on what they see it would be appreciated. Considering there are a few people on city council who are opposed to chickens in general the CUP has been drafted in such a way as to make it more appealling to those in opposition. See what you think. Thanks, Brian

Along with the usual conditional use permit requirements, applicants must adhere to and agree to the following conditions to be considered for approval of a CUP for permission to own chickens within the incorporated city limits of the City of Leadville. Non compliance with any of the following conditions may result in the loss of the Conditional Use Permit.

Applicants:
• May own up to six (6) chickens per household.
• Must provide enclosed housing of four (4) square feet per chicken.
• Must consider the likelihood of predators when choosing building materials.
• Building materials must be complimentary to existing structures.
• Must maintain all setbacks and easements required in your zoning district.
• Must maintain rodent proof metal food storage containers.
• Must maintain proper disposal of all waste to discourage predators, rodents and insects.
• Must maintain proper storage of fertilizer to discourage predators, rodents and insects.
• Must dispose of roosters within one year or until they become a nuisance.
• Must slaughter chickens humanely and out of sight of all neighbors.
• Must keep the slaughter area clean and sanitary after all slaughters.
• Must clean out the coop once a week.
• Must adhere to all Federal and State edicts concerning all avian diseases.
• Natural and assisted incubation of chicken eggs is prohibited.
• Should a brood of chicks hatch, those hatchlings shall be dispersed within five weeks.
• No monetary gain can be realized from the dispersing of extra chicks.
• Forfeiture of chickens will result after three (3) substantiated complaints.
• Adherence to the City code Title 6 (attached) regarding animals.
• An additional CUP must be filed if the keeping of chickens desists for more than one (1) year.
• Must provide a letter of approval from the landlord.

 

[Rootball]

Interesting....

I dont know if you have looked at it but Carbondale has a chicken ordinance within their city limits which allows everyone 5 chickens. Because of their closeness to you as well as similar town size, and ethnic make-up it might be beneficial to look at their ordinances and get feedback from their city Govt as to how well it is working.


• Natural and assisted incubation of chicken eggs is prohibited.

Seems strange, overly strict, and difficult to enforce. I see that they are trying to keep people from opening hatcheries in their homes. As Leadville is at 10,000ft I think it will be extremely hard to hatch shipped eggs in an incubator,( I have a really tough time in Aspen)however I think people should be allowed to try.

• Should a brood of chicks hatch, those hatchlings shall be dispersed within five weeks.

Strange to have this after the the previous point as any brood of chicks which hatch would be illegal....as I read it.

 

[EweSheep]

I do see a problem with roosters within one year clause. It would be best to classify NO roosters to save the aggravation of crowing if you have neighbors within xxx feet away. Alot of the city do not allow roosters because of the noise ordiances.

Be very clear about feet between neighbors LIVING residence, not garages, shed that has no human occupancy in them.

As for the clean up of coops, some of us clean out daily or every two weeks depending on the smell. So add something of the unfavorable scent clause in there if you get too many complaints, then it would count against you from owning future chickens or ban from having any chickens.

As for the Fed and State laws, that sounds like NAIS.....if your state allows all livestock, pets and so forth under the NAIS, then you would mention it. Otherwise, it is a load of hock!

As for the incubation, I would say some of us would like to have incubated eggs because of rarity of breeds and not all hatcheries have specific breeds that the chicken owner wished to have. I can see your point in the addictive part of incubating. So it needs to be specific about incubation and how it would be used. 4H projects, you would need alot of eggs to go that route.

The rest of it, looks very good!

Hope you will get it passed. Get the public feedback on that one!

 

[cockadoodle]

There are 3 that I'd primairly take some issue with.


"Must clean out the coop once a week."

Although the rest of the items that pertain to sanitary stuff don't explicitly dictate dates, I think they do adequetely cover making sure that the chickens live in a clean area without dictating time lines. The problem is that maybe I only have 3 hens, a huge coop and am using the deep litter method. It's cool that it's short and to the point, but I think clean out the coop needs to probably be defined a bit better to cover the above (and other) scenarios where weekly clean outs are not necessary.

"Natural and assisted incubation of chicken eggs is prohibited.
"Should a brood of chicks hatch, those hatchlings shall be dispersed "

Personally, I don't like either of those above. It's already covered by the 6 chickens per household requirement but takes that already pretty tight restriction a lot further. If I only had 3 chickens and a friend gave me 3 eggs to incubate, I would have a problem being told I couldn't when I would still be within the 6 chicken requirement. I don't know how to tell a momma chicken that she isn't allowed to sit on her eggs (fertile or not). Sounds unenforceable.

I think the others are ok and common sense for probably most people

just my .02

Good luck with the city council!

 

[Wifezilla]

With dog limitations, they do not restrict newborns...just dogs over a certain age. That might be a better approach than banning incubation. You have to replace your layers eventually and it makes no sense to have to buy new adults when you can hatch a few before the old girls become soup.