Why should backyard chickens be allowed in residential neighborhoods?

[aart]

@DMSelena ....great posts!!
Tho 'next' week(stated in the June 23rd OP) was 2 weeks ago...this will be invaluable info for others who are researching the issue.

@AmyTraurig how did the meeting go?

 

[Cryss]

Oof, this is why I moved to the county and bought an unrestricted deed. But I am grateful to people like you who are bringing wisdom into the public forum. Also, I work with city Councils all over the country when they are doing new development, so I have some experience here.

It's all going to come down to politics, in the end. Here's some advice:

1. Use what others have. Someone upthread posted what worked for their council. Don't reinvent the wheel. Also, it's good to have some numbers on other similarly situated communities that have already done this.
2. Find a list of communities that have small flock ordinances in place. Of those, select two or three that are the most similar to your community, in terms of home values, demographics, income, whether they are gated, geographic location, climate, types of tourism (if any), etc.
3. Find the date when they passed the ordinance. Look up any minutes they have on meetings about this ordinance. All of this is usually available online, but you can call the City and ask for help finding it. These kinds of things are definitely public record. What you want are the minutes for the Council meetings that show successful arguments and useful quotes you can re-use. You will also see the kinds of questions you can anticipate.
4. Do some research on the five years prior to the ordinance and five years after to see if there has been any impact on the following issues in those communities:
   1. Property values - this is going to be most important, because property taxes. If chickens effed with property values in similar communities, that's bad for your prospects.
   2. Incidents of animal control calls related to poultry and predators attracted to poultry, such as raccoons, opossum, and foxes - You can ask the local animal control agency for this information. Sometimes its available online. Was there any impact after the ordinance?
   3. Incidents of bird-related zoonotic disease in the area. The CDC probably has this information by county and municipality.
   4. Incidents of noise complaints - Make sure you're not including data from communities that have ordinances that don't exclude roosters specifically in the language. If they do exclude roos, did the noise complaints go up?
5. If there is no correlation between the ordinance and increased negative impact on similarly situated communities within the five year window, that information will do 75% of the work of arguing in your favor. I don't know if there is a way to track vermin populations. NYC does, but I'm not sure about other municipalities.
6. Gather supporters. Bring warm bodies with you to the meeting. Most of these things are attended by people who care, and whoever has the most bodies in support of the issue has a pretty good chance of winning. It helps if they are doing stuff like wearing a t-shirt, button, or whatever that identifies them as a chicken supporter. Seeing a bloc of 30 people walk into the meeting wearing "I <3 Backyard Chickens" t-shirts will make the Council pay more attention, because now you're a special interest group with enough people involved who care enough that they may not want to annoy you, especially if elections are close.
7. If you know anyone who knows someone who sits on the Council, or who has influence in your community, contact them and pitch it to them. You want people who own important businesses, own a lot of real estate, sit on the Chamber of Commerce, Elks/Rotary Club, or otherwise hold sway over whatever is important in your community. Explain your pitch and ask for their support.
8. Look up who donated to your elected officials on the Council. Find out who held fundraisers for your mayor's election campaign (just Google this). Once you have a list of those people, start doing some background on them until you find someone who looks like they might show you some sympathy. Look at their social media accounts and see if any of them share interests that coincide with organic local food (hunters, foodies, preppers, progressives, etc.). Then call them and ask for them to help you on this issue.
9. Getting signatures of support on a petition helps, too, but don't waste a lot of time with electronic signatures. I mean, you can do an online petition, but it's much better to have physical signatures collected via clipboard so the Councilmembers know that people in your community support the idea.

What you want to do is create an environment where supporting this seems like what everyone else is doing. Make it seem like a foregone conclusion. You do this by making as much noise as possible with the people you can get to speak up in support of this. Make the Council think that doing it is not only easy, but if they don't do it, they'll be punished politically.

Take away the option of "no" so that "yes" is all they have left by addressing all the reasons they'd have to say no, and making the "no" seem painful by having a loud group of people create the expectation of a yes. You want to drown out those few chicken-hating busybodies that are going to show up with their pinched faces and talk about how roosters are akin to welcoming pedophiles in the neighborhood. Make them seem like outsiders. Make your opinion seem like the one that is normal, and pinch-faced naysayers will find it psychologically more difficult to muster up the courage to show up and make their arguments in public, because people don't like to be on the outside.

I know that's a lot to do by next week, but do as much as you can, and remember that you can bring this issue back if you are initially rejected.

Get help with all this. Assign helpers to rese as rch different areas of these suggestions. Many hands make for quickly completed work.

 

[mountain chicken]

why most residential areas don't need to be raising any type of livestock

in most residential households both spouses work to make ends meet.

now people these days complain they don't have time to clean house due to working long hours .

now they want lets just say any livestock , the question is this
who is going to feed and water them .

clean the cage especially when the complain they cant keep there own living space clean.

how do they intend on keeping the cages clean , don't count on the young teens they are to busy playing on there phones or even playing video games.

not saying all residential family's fall under this but I'm sorry to say most do.

failing to look at their daily struggles at home . before adding more to the load .

eventually they forget to open the pen in the morning opps.
than forget to feed and water even a bigger opps..

than they neglect cleaning the pen it starts getting smelly and yucky.

who is the first to suffer yes the animals why because they can't file complaints. as your supposed to take care of them!

now remember living close to your neighbor do you really think they want to smell that stench hell no.

next thing you know your in way over your head with all kinds of court costs and legal fees

this don't apply to everyone but like in everything all it takes is that 1 sour apple

 

[AmyTraurig]

Backyard chickens have no place in residential areas. They are noisy, even the hens can wake the dead, forget the roosters.

Nope nope not a good idea, dogs bark and they get brought inside , chickens natter all day ....sorry no support from me

I appreciate the feedback. Yes I agree I have lived in residential neighborhoods where chickens ... no matter how well kept would have been a terrible ideas. The houses were on top of each other. If dogs barked in my neighbors house I could hear them in mine!

Trying to see what regulations and restrictions could help some families are larger property lots be able to be allowed backyard chickens.

 

[AmyTraurig]

- Why should residential neighborhoods be allowed backyard chickens?

If a residential neighborhood is allowed to have dogs, then chickens should be allowed. It should be a basic human right for every land owner to use his property to raise his own food, within certain restrictions which keep that right from infringing on the rights of his neighbors.

- What regulations do you believe counties should have to help owners maintain healthy lawns, property value, and a healthy flock?

Urban home owners should not be allowed to have more than 6 chickens. Coop and run should provide at least 4 s.f. in coop, and 10 s.f. in run per bird. Roosters should not be allowed. Litter management system should not result in any noticeable odor. Any composting efforts should be done with consideration to adhering to zoning ordinances. (distance from lot lines, wells, perhaps composting should be contained in a bin, tumbler, or otherwise sheltered from neighbor's view.) Coop and run should be placed a certain distance from neighbor's property lines and homes. No roosters. Poultry should not be allowed to free range unless directly supervised. Any incursions onto neighboring properties should result in poultry being confined to coop/run.

- What research have you done that you believe makes the case for backyard chickens?
- Any additional comments?

In a neighborhood where there is less than 1/4 acre per lot, I do not believe that keeping chickens would be appropriate.

Thank you so much!!

 

[AmyTraurig]

I am just starting to work on this with my city council as well, I am looking reduce the amount of land required for chickens from 3 acres to 1/2 to 1 (depending on what they are willing to give). I will keep you updated on on our progress and what works vs what doesn't!

Thank you! Yes I am also putting together a document based upon the feedback here and additional research. I will be sure to post it when I am done. I had to postpone my meeting with the county land and development team. I will call tomorrow to schedule a new meeting Good luck to you as well!

 

[AmyTraurig]

@DMSelena ....great posts!!
Tho 'next' week(stated in the June 23rd OP) was 2 weeks ago...this will be invaluable info for others who are researching the issue.

@AmyTraurig how did the meeting go?

I had to push back the meeting but glad I did! I am putting together a document based on the comments and suggestions here as well as from other research. I will try to post it here tonight or tomorrow and reschedule my meeting for August.

 

[AmyTraurig]

Oof, this is why I moved to the county and bought an unrestricted deed. But I am grateful to people like you who are bringing wisdom into the public forum. Also, I work with city Councils all over the country when they are doing new development, so I have some experience here.

It's all going to come down to politics, in the end. Here's some advice:

1. Use what others have. Someone upthread posted what worked for their council. Don't reinvent the wheel. Also, it's good to have some numbers on other similarly situated communities that have already done this.
2. Find a list of communities that have small flock ordinances in place. Of those, select two or three that are the most similar to your community, in terms of home values, demographics, income, whether they are gated, geographic location, climate, types of tourism (if any), etc.
3. Find the date when they passed the ordinance. Look up any minutes they have on meetings about this ordinance. All of this is usually available online, but you can call the City and ask for help finding it. These kinds of things are definitely public record. What you want are the minutes for the Council meetings that show successful arguments and useful quotes you can re-use. You will also see the kinds of questions you can anticipate.
4. Do some research on the five years prior to the ordinance and five years after to see if there has been any impact on the following issues in those communities:
   1. Property values - this is going to be most important, because property taxes. If chickens effed with property values in similar communities, that's bad for your prospects.
   2. Incidents of animal control calls related to poultry and predators attracted to poultry, such as raccoons, opossum, and foxes - You can ask the local animal control agency for this information. Sometimes its available online. Was there any impact after the ordinance?
   3. Incidents of bird-related zoonotic disease in the area. The CDC probably has this information by county and municipality.
   4. Incidents of noise complaints - Make sure you're not including data from communities that have ordinances that don't exclude roosters specifically in the language. If they do exclude roos, did the noise complaints go up?
5. If there is no correlation between the ordinance and increased negative impact on similarly situated communities within the five year window, that information will do 75% of the work of arguing in your favor. I don't know if there is a way to track vermin populations. NYC does, but I'm not sure about other municipalities.
6. Gather supporters. Bring warm bodies with you to the meeting. Most of these things are attended by people who care, and whoever has the most bodies in support of the issue has a pretty good chance of winning. It helps if they are doing stuff like wearing a t-shirt, button, or whatever that identifies them as a chicken supporter. Seeing a bloc of 30 people walk into the meeting wearing "I <3 Backyard Chickens" t-shirts will make the Council pay more attention, because now you're a special interest group with enough people involved who care enough that they may not want to annoy you, especially if elections are close.
7. If you know anyone who knows someone who sits on the Council, or who has influence in your community, contact them and pitch it to them. You want people who own important businesses, own a lot of real estate, sit on the Chamber of Commerce, Elks/Rotary Club, or otherwise hold sway over whatever is important in your community. Explain your pitch and ask for their support.
8. Look up who donated to your elected officials on the Council. Find out who held fundraisers for your mayor's election campaign (just Google this). Once you have a list of those people, start doing some background on them until you find someone who looks like they might show you some sympathy. Look at their social media accounts and see if any of them share interests that coincide with organic local food (hunters, foodies, preppers, progressives, etc.). Then call them and ask for them to help you on this issue.
9. Getting signatures of support on a petition helps, too, but don't waste a lot of time with electronic signatures. I mean, you can do an online petition, but it's much better to have physical signatures collected via clipboard so the Councilmembers know that people in your community support the idea.

What you want to do is create an environment where supporting this seems like what everyone else is doing. Make it seem like a foregone conclusion. You do this by making as much noise as possible with the people you can get to speak up in support of this. Make the Council think that doing it is not only easy, but if they don't do it, they'll be punished politically.

Take away the option of "no" so that "yes" is all they have left by addressing all the reasons they'd have to say no, and making the "no" seem painful by having a loud group of people create the expectation of a yes. You want to drown out those few chicken-hating busybodies that are going to show up with their pinched faces and talk about how roosters are akin to welcoming pedophiles in the neighborhood. Make them seem like outsiders. Make your opinion seem like the one that is normal, and pinch-faced naysayers will find it psychologically more difficult to muster up the courage to show up and make their arguments in public, because people don't like to be on the outside.

I know that's a lot to do by next week, but do as much as you can, and remember that you can bring this issue back if you are initially rejected.

Thank you SO much!!
I am a bit behind and actually had to postpone the meeting. This information helps tremendously. I will be rescheduling the meeting for next month. I gathered feedback, like yours, and research and will post all that here when I am complete so many others who may want to take this own can benefit and not "reinvent" the wheel either!

 

[OhZark Biddies]

-
If a residential neighborhood is allowed to have dogs, then chickens should be allowed.

I don't have an opinion on the raising chickens in town issue, simply because I have no experience with it one way or another... I have lived in the suburbs where chickens weren't allowed, and I have lived in rural areas with chickens, but I have never lived in a suburban area that allowed chickens, so I don't know the reality of that that's like.

But... I do think that many suburban areas need to be more strict on barking dogs, etc.

I really only mention this, to say be careful about saying "if you allow dogs, you have to..." , because there are many like myself that would have no issues with passing laws in suburban areas that make dog ownership a much more difficult thing. So the "dog defense" could backfire.

 

[lazy gardener]

I understand your complaint about barking dogs. I would think that such complaints would fall under noise ordinances. Of course, such things are subjective, My barking dog vs. the neighbor's leaf blower or blaring radio, or 4 wheeler racing up and down the street... Some neighbors take issue with the sounds of playing children.