Please Help Me! Glendale AZ

[luckitri]

Wow. I have been having a devil of a time logging in plus real busy with trying to get medical care. (I am suffering from surgical trauma to my liver which I know from my own research and verified by radiologist's reports and no doctor will acknowledge it much less help me find an answer.) They just throw pain killers at me and it gets to morphine level pain often. Ack! So I felt too ill to fight it but . . . .

I got a ticket on my door from the city telling me that I had to get rid of my chickens. I called the agent (or whatever you call him) and he said that nobody had complained about noise, smell, flying loose feathers or anything but that they are simply illegal in a residential area.

No HOA.

He gave me 2 weeks to get rid of them or face a $2500 fine.

Been real sick so today hubby told me I need to do something. I put an ad on Craigslist to give them away. Every day when I pet them I cry and apologize to them and feel so bad because I am taming them when they probably need to be wary of other humans.

The response was TREMENDOUS! Everybody from even far away (as in hours) wanted my chickens!

I have even been contacted by several activists who encouraged me to fight. One activist told me that the city purposely makes the laws and ordinances difficult to find so that you won't fight. Another activist organization told us that they have fought and won for illegals to be able to keep their fighting roosters in residential properties and so they will help us we hope! A third very wise person told me that basically the government is denying me my rights to try to provide for myself and family. One person told me that people are allowed to have large exotic bird pets and keep them in their yards, like parrots and macaws and they scream louder than any hen and their poop is not useable like a hens either. It is true that I had a neighbor with a loud bird like that.

I have been having extreme difficulty using the computer and the mails and phone calls kept pouring in even though I managed to update my post stating that they are pending pick-up.

Even just now as I am writing you I had a call from a woman who saw my posts and is asking me what the law is here in Glendale because she also wants to have chickens. It is 10:30 at night!

So everybody has a different idea and the city government will tell you it is illegal when I have had several callers tell me that it is legal. I even have a loose chicken that runs in the street like a dog just down the block and nobody has forced them to get rid of it. I do not know what house she belongs to but she acts like she owns the neighborhood and I find it endearing.

So I had the unpleasant task of telling my first pick that we will have to postpone and possibly cancel depending on the outcome of my efforts.

I know that what I have read here is true that chickens are suddenly the rage because every time we got enough money to buy wire for our pen the store (Home Depot and Lowes) would be out of the wire and the employees would tell us that it is selling like crazy because everybody is building chicken pens. Also I suddenly see locally many unemployed people trying to make a living building chicken pens for others.

So now I am keeping email addys and phone numbers and the one activist is planning to reach out to try to make a community organization to protect our rights and hopefully devise with the city a clear, consistent and easily accessible code of laws regarding the keeping of farm animals within city limits. In my last post I reached out to our local feed stores. They are small local businesses that need our support and I hope that they feel safe in supporting us. For 30 years I have touted the benefits of the greater Phoenix area - that you can have animals and the benefits of a large city and how fantastic it is. In these economic hard times it is wrong to change it.

I will take any help and advise I can get THANK YOU!

I hope we win!

P.S. In my original update to Craigslist I copied and credited information from the South Portland Maine site that fought and won but I could not get the post to update. Hopefully I will have the time to find more such links here and add them to my arsenal with permission of the people here. I was hoping to make a packet of these and take them to the feed stores in order to persuade people to sign a petition or something like that. Maybe it would be smarter to keep it short and sweet and just attach a list of the sites for those interested. If anybody has information regarding community activism for animals other than chickens I would be interested in that information as well as there have been many small farms in my area that are being forced out and this one guy that contacted me today has spent a frightening amount of money in court to keep his small farm. I am always sad when yet another local farm disappears. I want to keep them. We need to keep them. I hope to initiate an organization that will have a life of its own just in case I get too ill to keep up with it which is the case on many days.

PPS. Arizona Desert Chicks! My 5 babies are in a pen. My chicken and a half (easter egger and bantam) do free range. At another residence I had a few years ago here in Glendale my 4 chickens did free range and I never had a complaint or a problem. We have considered re-penning the chicken and a half but I doubt they would take kindly to it after having the run of the yard. If that is the law I will have to re-home them to someone who can allow them to free-range.

So now if only I could get my city council member to return my calls.

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

Are they trying to make you get rid of your chickens because they are not penned or because of where you live?

I would ask the city representative to look up and read you the exact ordinance that they are going by -- everything I see about the city of Glendale is that chickens are permitted as long as they are penned (if you go to the link on my last page and put 'poultry' in the subject line, you can see what I mean). Make them prove it to you.

If they tell you that chickens are legal, but that the problem is that yours are free-range, then that is another matter. If this is the problem, maybe you can rehome your 2 free range chickens and keep your other 5. As long as you have a pen for them, you should be able to let them out to free-range for a few hours a day without anyone noticing or caring (after this has blown over).

I'm wondering why they are giving you problems. Where do you live (approx. cross-streets)? Is your home in a newer subdivision? Do you have a homeowner's assoc.? Do you have a block privacy wall or can neighbors see easily into your backyard - this shouldn't matter, but I'm wondering why they care?

 

[luckitri]

Hey ArizonaDesertChicks!

Uh well, I got their attention! A couple of the people from the city called me today and I have gotten nowhere. They keep referring it up the ladder. One guy did refer me to the website you referenced but I have not had a chance to go there yet. I need to because the activist that called me said there is no law, ordinance or code. He says they just try to throw their weight around rather than make a legitimate code or law about it. The city guy did refresh me that I only have till the 24th.

I am at 51st and Greenway on the Glendale side and south of Greenway. Wish I was in Sunburst Farms! I have R2 zoning they keep telling me. They say for R2 it is totally illegal. There was not a specific complaint about the chickens - just that there are chickens. I think that we have some persnickety retired neighbors that want a Stepford wives type of neighborhood - it seems that they have nothing to do but report everything about all the neighbors. They do not live where they can see the chickens and are not adjacent to me - they probably heard we have them either from Henrietta bragging about one of the eggs she laid or from a gossipy neighbor and decided to report - it is all they do it seems - in addition to snooping and pretending they have business in the front yard when really all they want to do is snoop and see who is going to who's house for dinner because they have no life.

Lots of these neighbors are downright wierd.

The yard has a wood fence but the pen cannot be seen from the street. My chicken and a half that free range do go all around but prefer the back. 2 of my neighbors have said they were cool with it. We have not met the others.

I keep telling them that I clean the poop and feathers every day and I asked the man that called this afternoon if he had ever had a backyard chicken egg and he said no. I offered to give him some but he refused. I assured him that once he tastes a backyard chicken egg he will understand everything.

Tomorrow some bigwig director is supposed to call me oops! I mean Monday. My husband recognized the name and said she is like royalty around Glendale City Government.

 

[luckitri]

Oh yes, we really love Henrietta and Little Bit but now that they have free-ranged we don't think that they will take kindly to being in the pen again. Actually Henrietta had taken to inmate like behavior. She would make alot of noise on the wire of her pen with her beak - telling me to let them out. The babies want out just because they see Henrietta and Little Bit running around and because the poor things are probably bored in their pen.

I would prefer to let them free range but I have not yet learned how to make their nests so desireable that I won't have to go on an egg hunt every day. Also it is too time-consuming to harvest the poop from free-rangers.

One possibly legitimate complaint that a neighbor could have would be flies. I found a recipe on here that is for bug juice that you make from vinegar and sugar water. I don't know if it works well yet because the weather has been so variable. I figure once it gets consistently hot I will know.

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

You're not far from me - I'm near 70th Ave & Union Hills (near Arrowhead, but we are in the older homes with large, 1/2 acre lots). If you were on the opposite side of Greenway, you'd have no problem at all.

I went to that website and looked up R-2 zoning. There is nothing at all listed regarding livestock or poultry, where on the rural, urban, and suburban residential zoning there are guidelines listed. Maybe if it's not mentioned, it's not allowed?

Here's the description (copied & pasted) of R-2 zoning from that website:

"Section 5.410 R-2--Mixed Residence.

5.411 Purpose.
This district provides a transition from urban single residence districts to a mixture of residential land uses which include low-density, multiple-residence dwellings. The intent of the district is to preserve and encourage the development of a variety of attached and detached housing units which include common open space and recreational amenities. The district encourages the clustering of single residence units which can provide a varied residential environment."

If the person who calls you Monday, still says there is no poultry allowed, ask about pets - ask if are you able to keep just 2 or 3 chickens as pets? I hope so. If not, I can give you the name of a lady who sells her extra eggs for $3 a dozen and lives near you - 42nd Ave, south of Greenway (eggs are blue, brown, & white). I know it's not near as good as having your own chickens, but at least you would still be able to have those backyard chicken eggs.

I really hope you get good news Monday and they make an exception for you - let us know.
Mary Ann

 

[Dr.Doorlock]

Have you contacted the local newspaper or television station. Your's is a very good human interest story which should tug at some heartstrings to get the public on your side. I used to produce a radio show and we would have LOVEd to air such a story.

If you get your story publisized well enough, some politician will get on your side to make him/herself look good in the public eye.

 

[vermontgal]

I looked at the Glendale zoning ordinances on the Municipal codes website previously posted.

It looks like each category of zoning goes through the permitted and non-permitted uses. In R-2, poultry and livestock are not mentioned. In several other zoning categories -- in other parts of Glendale -- poultry are mentioned as permitted or accessory uses. To my reading this means that poultry are not permitted as livestock in R-2.

I think your strongest argument is about having chickens as "household pets." Household pets are permitted as an "accessory" use in your zoning. That means that your having household pets should be incidental to the property -- you can't turn your house over to dogs, cats (or chickens), or have a kennel, or a pet-related business.

Stop thinking about their eggs and food value. You do not have a legal leg to stand on there. Start thinking (and talking) about how much you love them, give them treats, maybe like sitting and watching them, talking to them, etc. A household pets argument is focused on their pet value not the eggs. Compare the chickens to other household pets for size, noise (barking dogs?) etc. There are many other pets who might be called "household pets" but kept outside (rabbits, hunting dogs). You might mention that some people do keep house chickens (look up "chicken diaper" if you don't know about this).

If you don't have the energy to take this on right now, then let it go before you get fined, find your chickens a good home -- and when your health is better, see if you can take it to your city council for their ruling about a small number of chickens (hens) as pets.

Good luck!

 

[luckitri]

Wow. Thank you neighbor and vermontgal! Yes the pain makes my brain quit so I appreciate the thoughts. I cannot remember what the city guy said and I still haven't been to the site yet but Mary Ann your interpretation goes along with what the activist told me - he said THERE IS NO LAW CODE OR ORDINANCE! I think you are correct, it is written inside out and backwards - like you are supposed to somehow psychicly know that if nothing is written they are not allowed. If something is written they are allowed within those parameters.

I think, vermontgal, that your interpretation is correct but for someone like me who is untrained in how to read that - or if I only looked at the R2 section without the context of the other sections I would not deduce that I am not allowed to have them. I learned about the diapers on here a few years ago when I had chickens before - got to find the link again. Maybe I will offer them that option - let me keep them in the house with diapers? Ha ha!

Hey good Dr! I was the little girl who turned all different colors anytime anyone spoke to her, couldn't get my eyes off the floor, and could never get my voicebox to work in response to communication from others. In a way I have gotten alot better but now that I am ill and disabled the only communication I have outside of my immediate family is on forums such as this and not that often either. Part of me would love to do that but I do not pay attention enough to local media to even know where to start and due to some historical complications I am extremely publicity adverse. I do know that there is alot of interest in being able to keep chickens locally as well as people who thought that they could and have since found out that they cannot. People are frantic to find ways to combat the effects of the economy and are turning to chickens.

I was told that illegal aliens, with the help of a community activist organization have been allowed to keep their fighting cocks at their residences in Glendale - that they won their battle claiming cultural heritage. Yet when I mentioned this to the a.m. caller she said it flat out is not true. So we are wondering which is the truth or did they make some kind of hush hush agreement because I do seem to remember media articles about it but never caught the resolution part of it.


My husband and I noticed the last couple of evenings that the babies are taming up suddenly quite a bit. We think that they somehow know what is going on. Some pets seem to know us not just from our habits and body language, vocal intonations etc - they seem to know more. I have been talking to them about the situation when I am out there with them but of course I did not expect them to understand English!

 

[luckitri]

This is probably a really weak argument especially because it doesn't happen very often but I just love it when my 14 year old brings home some alienated teen who can't deal with adults and I ask the kid to go and get me an egg for something I am making in the kitchen. They are so challenged by that! Some of the uber cool macho young men can't cope. But usually they go out and get me an egg and for a minute or two that huge generation gap and all that negative angst is gone. They are changed.

The police have complained to me that there are too many kids without good activities and I have an idea about teens chickens and community gardens brewing here.

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

Lukitri,
Did they call you today? Are you able to keep any of your pet chickens?