San Diego paper prints our pro-chicken letters!

[45519]

Thanks to everyone who sent in letters and comments when my local paper (the San Diego Union-Tribune) printed a nasty editorial criticizing me by name for trying to legalize chickens in my city. The paper must have been overwhelmed with responses, and they printed many of them. One response that was printed was from someone who identified herself as a member of this forum!

Here's a link to see all of the letters: http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/3016/the-chicken-project-san-diego-paper-prints-our-letters
(Scroll to the bottom for links to previous write-ups of my efforts to legalize chicken in East County San Diego, including a link to the original editorial that started all of this.)

As far as I'm concerned, they just gave us some free publicity. Now many more people in my area know about my efforts to legalize chickens and hopefully they will join us (and maybe they'll even join this forum, since it was mentioned in one of the letters). I hope this influences people in other nearby communities to look into their local laws and to try to change them. I know people in San Diego city are working on it there, but San Diego city proper seems to be really really really really slow to do ANYTHING, even something as sensible as allowing backyard chickens. Working on outlying areas near San Diego seems to me to be an easier way to start. When my city council began to consider this they asked what other nearby cities did about chickens. Assuming that ALL cities will ask such a question, the more cities we can get to legalize backyard chickens, the more it will help get them legalized in the remaining cities. Already in San Diego county there's been a legalization effort in Imperial Beach that's been successful and I'm so grateful that I can report to my city council that a nearby city changed their laws in favor of chickens recently. I think that would signal to our council that changing the law to allow chickens went through a full review in a community much similar to our own and came out ahead.

Thanks again for your help and your letters with this!

 

[Dar]

 

[Wildsky]

I thought they (hens) were legal everywhere except in La Mesa, or some small area like that???

 

[45519]

Quote:
Sort of. There WERE only 2 cities within the county that 100% banned chickens. They were Imperial Beach and Coronado I believe. Imperial Beach has since changed their law. Every other city allows chickens in some form or another. However, nearly every city has ridiculous zoning laws that EFFECTIVELY ban MOST people from having chickens. La Mesa is like that, so are El Cajon and Lemon Grove. You need to have a certain amount of square footage, often 1/3 to 1/2 of an acre or more. In La Mesa I think you must also be in a specific zone (east of the 125 freeway) or else you can't have chickens even if your lot is the right size. Or they'll require you to keep your chickens a certain # of feet away from the property line or away from any other building, and that is a roadblock to people whose lots are too small to meet that requirement.

 

[Wildsky]

Quote:
Sort of. There WERE only 2 cities within the county that 100% banned chickens. They were Imperial Beach and Coronado I believe. Imperial Beach has since changed their law. Every other city allows chickens in some form or another. However, nearly every city has ridiculous zoning laws that EFFECTIVELY ban MOST people from having chickens. La Mesa is like that, so are El Cajon and Lemon Grove. You need to have a certain amount of square footage, often 1/3 to 1/2 of an acre or more. In La Mesa I think you must also be in a specific zone (east of the 125 freeway) or else you can't have chickens even if your lot is the right size. Or they'll require you to keep your chickens a certain # of feet away from the property line or away from any other building, and that is a roadblock to people whose lots are too small to meet that requirement.

Well thats stupid. I used to live in El Cajon/Santee, but the darn yard was so small you couldn't even swing a cat! (I didn't have chickens then)

 

[45519]

Quote:
Agreed. Our yard is small but it's big enough to grow some food and house a few chickens. I don't think we'd get more than 4 chickens really. One per member of the family. I've asked the city for up to 6 per single family residence.

 

[littlegorb]

Quote:
Agreed. Our yard is small but it's big enough to grow some food and house a few chickens. I don't think we'd get more than 4 chickens really. One per member of the family. I've asked the city for up to 6 per single family residence.

when i bought my house, i also bought the lot it sits on. there is, of course, soil. i live in the fertile Platte Valley in the panhandle of nebraska. i make the most of my soil, and compost my girl's waste to rejuvinate my soil after my garden is through giving me a ton of food.
any gardener knows that when you harvest food from the soil, it depletes it of nutrients. they have to be replaced. i commend you for wanting to grow your own food and be as self sustaining as you can.
if you read my "big fat chicken fight" you would know what i'm going through. the city council here thinks i am a nut for wanting and needing to keep my chickens. they all stick together because they are afraid if they don't they will get a finger pointed at them too.
keep fighting the good fight. the food chain is very natural, duh! chickens poop, we feed our crops from the chicken poop, we eat the crops, share with our friends, neighbors, we get eggs, and we get entertainment from our happy girls.
your newspaper editor is from mars i guess. he/she needs no real food.

 

[feetsoup]

Keep fighting the good fight!