The State of MA showed up today to inspect our chickens

[the simple life]

Yup, and to get it you have to jump through hoops.
I had to get signed permission from all of the neighbors who abut my property, go to the animal control officer, fill out a form and then have him inspect my yard and give me the okay.
After I got the okay from him I had to go to the building department to get permission to house chickens in a coop in my yard, even if its not a big enough coop to need a permit for, they just have to give the okay for you to have a coop in the yard.
After they sign off then its to to the board of health with all the paperwork and five dollars for the permit
Good times.

 

[SewingDiva]

Quote:
We live in a suburb of Boston that is rapidly urbanizing. The permit is only $10 a year and I'm grateful to have it. Our current neighbors are no problem, but if we ever get new ones - who knows? If anyone complains I have legal protection.

That's worth $10 a year to me!

Phyllis

 

[Buff Hooligans]

Quote:
That's what we had to go through too. It cost $150 just to apply for the chance to have all the meetings they require you to attend and explain yourself. And so many town departments were involved, and they all said conflicting things about what was needed.

Massachusetts is a government-heavy state, wasting our money.

 

[Royicus]

Wow. This stinks. Glad it went well, but not something the .gov should be doing, methinks.

 

[SewingDiva]

Quote:
That's what we had to go through too. It cost $150 just to apply for the chance to have all the meetings they require you to attend and explain yourself. And so many town departments were involved, and they all said conflicting things about what was needed.

Massachusetts is a government-heavy state, wasting our money.

All we had to do was fill out an application, submit coops plan and a site plan with a $10 check. The Board of Health comes out, inspects the coop, and mailed us the permit.

No hearings, no abutters approval required.

My town doesn't waste my money, that's for sure.

Phyllis

 

[the simple life]

In our town if you want to keep more than three dogs you have to go through the EXACT same process I described as you do for keeping chickens.
This time they call it a kennel license.
I had to go to the building department even though I don't have anything built for them in the yard.
Its already fenced in and they sleep in the house.
Not even a dog house out there, but I had to go to the building department.
When I went to get the poultry permit I had to go to the building department three different times because the guy I needed to see kept stepping out, even though I called ahead to see what times he would be in.
Now, I would love some goats, but that whole process.....

 

[Reinbeau]

I am so happy I'm in an agricultural town - and I don't think I'm more than 10 miles from Natalie! In this town the only problem would be if you bought into one of those HOA developments (something I would never, ever do). For the most part Hanson is pretty laid back about animals. However, if the neighbors started to complain I'm sure there'd be someone from the town to deal with.

 

[purr]

wow am I glad I'm in freetown. everybody in town has chickens and various other farm animals.And nobody gets on my property without a warrant, or an invite I didn't even let the tax assessor in.Told him he should have called first.My dd was breast feeding at the time and he thought he was going to walk right in. HAH! I don't think so!
No permit required here and half the time we don't have an animal control officer.

 

[the simple life]

I know, its pretty frustrating, and I mean there are a whole lot worse things we could be doing than raising chickens ya know?

 

[SewingDiva]

Quote:
Ann, I've been inside the Whitman-Hanson H.S. because my DD's dance studio does their winter concerts there. Beautiful building! Way nicer than Westwood's H.S. When the state chose Whitman-Hanson as a model H.S. for new projects it made perfect sense to me. I work in Newton, and I've heard the whole Newton North debacle from friends that live there. Oye vey.

Your part of the south shore is really nice - your're pretty far from the interstates like Rte 24, so you don't seem to have "mall disease". And the nutty Cape traffic doesn't come your way. It's hard to believe you're really not far from Boston as the crow flies (or from me either.)

~Phyllis