Thanks.
Our neighbors actually said to us after strike 1, 'oh, just get the chickens and don't tell the city'. Tempting, but that only hurts the other people down the road when the city comes back and punishes the whole class for one kid screwing around.
I'm not a fan of government in general and all their rules but sometimes you just have to follow them and play nice. I was completely pleasant and professional in all my dealings with everyone in the admin building and it worked - they worked with me, helped me each time my permit was denied until we came to an agreement. It was frustrating to run into obstacles - that first call to me telling me my permit was denied just about gave me a heart attack as we already had the coop built, delivered and set into a spot that we had specifically cleared and leveled, but I wanted this badly enough and persisted. I hope anyone reading this who is foraying into this for the first time can avoid the headaches we did by doing homework and talking to the govt. people first..even if you THINK you know what the rules are by talking to friends or reading the ordinance online, plus sometimes people who work in the city have differing ideas of what's allowed - some were uninformed and i was dealing with both the city planning dept as well as animal control. Wording can be really tricky. So many people in our city worked to get an ordinance passed in the first place and the last thing I want to do is get a hand slap and have chickens get a bad rap and/or eventually be not allowed within city limits.
So, we did it backward, accidentially.
1) We read the rules, bought the coop, set it outside and submitted plans to the city.
DENIED. Our outbuilding + the coop=too many suare feet. (in our defense, the ordinance talked about someone coming out to inspect the coop, then a permit would be granted, so we assumed we needed to buy a suitable coop first. We had one built with the required footage, thinking it would be approved, no problem. This wording has since been changed in the city ordinance at my request, as in talking to folks at the city, others had done the same thing as we had and were denied due to confusing wording).
2) We read the rules, talked to folks at the city, submitted plans to put wheels on the coop as a mobile tractor and technically not a stationary structure?
DENIED. Not allowed.
3) Decided we would have to now put the coop in the garage as to just get it out of the yard...dragged it into the garage.
DENIED. Needs an outdoor run.
4) Had long conversations with 5-6 different city people + animal control. Talked some more. Made numerous visits and phone calls. Submitted a new set of plans, with pictures of our coop, garage, location, etc, and articles about which chickens are awesome and everything with plans showing how we'd construct an outside run.
APPROVED!!
We have been granted a sort of provisionary permit, meaning I have to call the animal control guy to come out and take a final look at what we've built, then we get the city's blessing. But basically we have the okay. Had I gone to the city first and talked, talked, talked, I'd avoided a lot of headaches.
Bogtown - I will be doing poop duty this afternoon. I need to locate a hazmat suit. We're talking 2 dogs, 2 turds over the course of 5 months. That's a lotta ----. Haha. I don't want to even do the math.
