*The City of San Diego, California - Chicken and Gamebird / Fowl Law*

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Hello everybody! I came across the forums while looking into the legality of acquiring 3-4 chickens here in San Diego. Exceellent info here.

It seems the 50' minimum distance to residential structures within San Diego city limits is really a de facto ban on over 80% of our residential lots, since very few are that large, and most that are border on open spaces like canyons and parks.

I was wondering what became of Kaya's efforts back in 2009 and the others who spoke of petioning the council? The texasstreetcoops website she created appears down and my research through all past agenda minutes put out by the city council shows they have never had the issue of easing restrictions put before them - maybe I missed something?
 
I am really fortunate to have tolerant neighbors, some of them even enjoy the sound of my roosters. I know people who have chickens where they are allowed to but who have had a terrible time with neighbors. I would rather live with nice neighbors and break a few codes the be totally legal and have some of the intolerant neighbors my friends have described.

About the idea of calling the chickens a 4H or FFA project, I don't know if that would work. I think you can get permits for animal raising projects in unincorporated areas but I don't know about in the city. We are in 4H and many of our animals are 4H projects but my daughter's former poultry leader had to get rid of all of her 4H chickens (when she was still in high school) because her neighbor turned her in. The city of Escondido did not make allowances for 4H projects
 
Thanks Kath. I met with Kaya last week, and although those two articles were recently printed, they told only of what happened to her back in 2009. Since that time, nothing has been advanced in the way of amending the city code, by anyone in San Diego, so her and I agreed that the process needs to start now. The process needs to be carried out throughout the city's districts and not rely on just one local group. So here is the plan we came up with that needs to be copied in all districts:

First, I contacted my district's councilmember, and his office's recommendation for the strongest approach was to have a local planning committee make a recommendation to the city for the amendment. Obviously the more planning committees make the recommendation, the stronger the case. So the first order of business for each of us is to contact our local planning committees so that we may have our matter placed on their agendas. This is the most basic local level and is actually very easy to schedule.

Next, I did just that and scheduled my proposal to be heard at the next planning committee meeting. I am in the Greater Golden Hill section of our district, which includes Golden Hill and South Park. My proposal is scheduled to be heard June 8, and I would encourage any of you that live in my area to attend to show support. This will be an initial presentation, to be followed at a later date I am sure with more detailed supporting evidence.

Third, a packet of information needs to be prepared so the committee members, and ultimately the city councilmembers, may have their concerns addressed. We can certainly anticipate those concerns to be related to health issues and noise, so the packets need to contain authoritative rebuttals from sources such as university research studies, health organizations and other cities' findings.

Finally, in preparation for the final stages of presentation, to both planning committees and the city, a large quantity of signatures would be needed to demonstrate support. Right now, there isn't anyone involved in government that feels this is important or takes it seriously. The petitions could be kept at local garden centers, nurseries, garden clubs, and booths at various local fairs and markets.

I'll update when we get more along in the process, and I hope to hear of others' progress in scheduling the matter in their districts.
 
oh I am soo excited! I want to get involved however I can! Although I don't consider myself a "smart" cookie at all right now buuut please let me know how else I can lend a hand! I would love to show up to show support, as far as getting research papers together and all that sort I can totally do that! My boyfriend works for Sony of San Diego, I would love to be able to get him to record actual chicken sounds and compare them to the decibels of various city animals (dogs, cats, birds etc) so that there will be a basis for comparison as far as noise management is concerned
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would that be useful for the paper?

Also maybe we can have other options open for the city to actually consider people having chickens

like maybe if we suggested that there be a license fee to own chickens that you pay every few years etc depending on how many chickens you own or whatever (maybe the city would be more willing to accept allowing chickens if they make some $$ out of it, which I myself wouldn't mind paying so long as it's not some ridiculous fee)

as far as health concerns come along my suggestion again is maybe either have people maintain a current food handlers license (which is silly but at least shows that you have an understanding for the safe handling and so forth of 'food' even though you really don't deal with it) OR have a ServSafe certification etc (but those are pricey) whatever it takes to show those people that we are actually sanitary owners. Gah am I getting too ahead of myself? I really want to see this turn around!!
 
Hi Chris and RM
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One thing that might be used as "fuel for the fire" so to speak is to mention that many if not most of these backyard chickens have been hand-raised, in THE VERY HOME they are suddenly supposed to be 50 feet away from. What sort of SD logic is that? Follow the money....

I have a busy week but will check back and add more info as I find it. Thanks!

And the crows near me are louder and crow longer than any birds I've ever heard, not to mention their song is less than pleasant to my ears. Thankfully, I live in a neighborhood with extremely bright animal lovers, and rarely hear barking from any of their dogs. Chickens would be a nice addition; roosters, not so much!
 
The decibel comparison is an excellent idea, such a report would be very valuable especially if it was done showing every crucial factor that may be called into doubt such as type of equipment used, calibration/testing of equipment, weather conditions, multiple trials at different times, distances and the qualifications and credentials of the person doing the testing and signing of the report.

The 50' rule appears to be a half century old code and present government representatives are not sure why it was put that way. It was probably a combination of noise (since roosters are still allowed at that distance) and airborne particles/health issues, so these would have to be rebutted. The same 50' rule also applies to rabbits so noise is not the only issue.

Also, I wouldn't want to suggest in any way to the city that we would be willing to pay fees, obtain licenses etc. - let them come up with that if they have to as a last resort if they won't approve it otherwise - we shouldn't have to be so regulated for a few hens as it really shouldn't be government's business for such a zero public impact issue as a handful of hens.

If anyone knows of a local (North/South Park, Golden Hill) based garden club or community garden group or other "green/environmental" group that has the ability to staff a booth for public presentation of their garden/green club and to gather support for the hens, there is an excellent opportunity coming up on June 18 in South Park at the Old House Fair. There will be hundreds and hundreds of visitors looking at various exhibitors' booths at this event and there is still time to see if I can get a booth if we can land a club or group quickly, any ideas? Here's the link to the info for the fair:

http://theoldhousefair.weebly.com/
 
Hello all,

I just started some research on this issue TODAY and found a TON of helpful info on the web. Specifically, I have some friends who live near the beach in San Diego and keep a few healthy chickens in a state-of-the-art homemade chicken coop and pen. This roost is REALLY cool and the chickens have a great life! Unfortunately, there is one pesky neighbor
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who has nothing better to do than give my friends a hard time about their sustainable way of living (ie- urban gardening & chickens). Pursuant to the neighbor's complaints, the City just recently sent my friends a threatening letter and now they are considering relocating their friendly pets- which would truly break their hearts.
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Instead of rolling over, we decided just last night to try to fight back. Thus, my friends and I are VERY interested in changing the current law to allow responsible owners to keep a few chickens in their backyards less than 50 ft from adjacent dwellings. From my research, I found the best approach is to assemble a group to attend City Council meetings and prepare some well-planned arguments and proposed legislation. Sounds like some of you are way ahead of me here, and the sound recording project seems like an EXCELLENT idea.

My friends and I are willing to offer our support to fight this cause by assembling a crew, mostly from the beach area (PB & OB), to attend meetings and gathering TONS of signatures on a petition as needed. Between us, we have strong ties to the urban/organic farming movement, food industry, and legal community. If anyone is SERIOUS about taking this to the next level, please chime in.

- James
 
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Hey Sorry! I forgot to ask... maybe it would be nice if we all communicated and told each other "Exactly" what was the proposals we had scheduled? it would be actually very nice if we all suggested the same proposal. I think if many people from different districts ended up asking for the exact same "proposal" then people would start to see that there really is a common need in the entire county of San Diego and maybe take it more serious across all districts?? Soooo... is it at all possible for you to post exactly what (or similar wording) you may have submitted?

Like... (like I said I am not all that keen of a person) maybe it will give us a cookie cutter format for me to copy and paste AND/OR submit it to other people so they too can act and submit this exact same request in their district by replacing the name of the district etc?

something like: " I ____________ would like to make a proposal for the amendment of _____________ in the San Diego ___________ code to allow chickens within 15 feet of a residential property with the conditions of blah blah blah" know what I mean? Sorry.... I just am not very good with phrasing things correctly and would at least like to make sure what I am submitting at least looks similar to one that you may have submitted, I could just replace and sub some words to make it look unique also in case you think uniqueness counts, but I would really REALLY like a template to get myself an idea of what to say
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I really appreciate what you are doing! My BF agreed to help me out for this cause but he actually told me he didn't feel like recording sounds under various weather conditions (such as rain and extreme winds etc) most animals are quiet under such conditions anyway. I think if we recorded maybe the daytime, afternoon, and night time noise it might help. But it seems like such a shore for him to travel around all of San Diego (he really doesn't care about this issue as much as I do) so I suggested we buy a decibel meeter and loan it around to various die hard chicken owners so they can volunteer their own time and record and take record of their findings, maybe if we have an actual camera rolling and recording the meeter to document actual readings at the time and then we can compile all these videos and records into a graph. I can be more detailed later, still trying to come up with a plan of attack as well. What do you guys think?
 

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