Question, Please help! :)

[seanengler]

Ok so I was able to get a hold of the municipal code for my city. I did a text search in the electronic document for chickens and returned with 0 information. Next I tried poultry and this is what I was able to find.

Sec. 5.12.700. Livestock fences.
Every owner, keeper, custodian or harborer of livestock shall erect and/or maintain a fence as herein described to contain and confine all livestock kept or maintained on his or her property. Such fence shall be sufficiently good, strong and substantial as to prevent the ingress and egress of livestock. No wire fence is a good and substantial fence within the meaning of this Section unless it has three tightly stretched barbed wires securely fastened to posts of reasonable strength, firmly set into the ground not more than one rod apart, one of which wires shall be at least four feet above the surface of the ground. Any kind of wire or other fence of height, strength and capacity equal to or greater than the wire fence herein described is a good and substantial fence within the meaning of this Section. Cattle guards of such width, depth, rail spacing and construction as will effectively turn livestock are also a good and substantial fence.

The definition of livestock according to my city is "Livestock shall be defined as any domesticated poultry, cattle, goats, swine, sheep and equines which are kept in captivity or under the control or ownership of any person for any purpose. "

Nowhere does it provide specific details on how many chickens can be kept though....what do you guys interpret from this? Do you think I am legal?

 

[theFox]

Take a look at the zoning ordinances of your town as that is where they will tell you what you can do in each zone and frequently how you must do it, then you need to find out what zone your lot is in.

 

[seanengler]

I just read through the entire zoning regulations and it again leaves out poultry and livestock. It is not listed anywhere in the prohibited or allowed usages of residential land...I have a feeling it was just "overlooked" in the zoning codes and municipal codes.

 

[theFox]

Quote:
Since you don't list the town and state where you live we can't go searching for or even look at the information.

If the rules of construction say what is not permitted is not allowed and there is no explicit language permitting poultry you would be out of luck.

It isn't likely that they haven't got all of their bases covered, it may be that there is a bit of conflicting wording in the various ordinances but somewhere in the mess of words is actual information.

Why don't you visit town hall and talk to the code enforcement/zoning folks.

 

[seanengler]

here is the link to the codes.

http://www.cityofrsm.org/gov/municode.asp

 

[theFox]

"..... Any use that is not consistent with Federal, State or local law and is not expressly permitted in a zoning district as a permitted uses or as a conditionally permitted use, including a use in a district determined to be similar in character to a particular use allowed in such district as provided by this Title, shall be deemed a prohibited use and such use shall not be allowed in such district. " ....

From

Sec. 9.03.050. Prohibited uses.

Now since the fine folks in that town/city have defined poultry to be livestock you have to look for a zone that allows livestock and although I haven't gone through all of the zoning verbiage the presented table leads me to believe that you are out of luck when it comes to keeping chickens.

Your best bet is still to talk to the folks on the zoning board or with code enforcement.

You basically need to search on livestock and find a zone where it is explicitly permitted or conditionally permitted.

The folks in that town/city have indeed got all of their bases covered.