City Issued a Citation and claims we aren’t allowed to have chickens due to neighbor’s complaint. What are my options?

[SourRoses]

The fact that the rats were IN her garage is evidence that she doesn't have a rodent-secure building. For a house, all ingress points should be covered with mesh like soffits, dryer vents, etc.
And what drew the rats to her garage? They are usually seeking food (garbage?) or water.

We had a horrible rat problem at our previous house. We saw rats for years before they actually affected our chicken area. Because sometimes we didn't have chickens, and for the longest period we had just one small flock.
There were two big farms (one with hogs) nearby, and a neighbor who collected junk cars and fed their dogs outside. We knew he had rat problems for years because of the random shooting at nighttime they had to explain to everyone.

Only after we scaled up our chicken operation did the rats come over for the spilled feed that was hard to clean up, multiple water stations, etc.
I found it helped to not only lock up the feeders, but dump all the water sources every night. Poisoned, trapped, but the numbers were ever increasing. Whatever we did, they could just hop over to the neighbors to survive until some chickens made a mess again.
Nevertheless, in winter, we got them in the house, and that's a hundred kinds of horrible. The house should have been secured against rodent infestation, but there were multiple ingress points not addressed by the homeowner even after we told them about the problem.
Moral of the story: Everyone in a community has to take measures against rats. They shouldn't have housing, water, or food at any location.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

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[All4Eggz]

I have reached out to a city council member from my city who, last year, made a proposal to allow chickens in our city in A residential areas with over 5,000 square feet. 6 would be allowed.

Nowhere online did I find the outcome of the hearing from July 2023. A friend of mine is friends with him and his wife so she contacted his wife who informed her that it was unfortunately rejected by the city.


I then contacted him directly and he said
“Please contact City Planner ___ and ask him about the process to obtain a license through the planning board. His number is._”

I called the number and left a message so now I am waiting for a response.


I also spoke to a paralegal who has been looking into this for me the past couple days.

Here is what she informed me.

—
I took a deeper look into finding a way to save your chickens (I also checked with an attorney in __. Unfortunately, per current ___ ordinances, having chickens on your property is illegal and the only way to reverse this situation is for you to apply for a Special Permit through the City of Westfield Planning Board, which is a very costly and lengthy process.

Basically, you live in a Residential A District where, per current city ordinance, “raising and keeping chickens is not allowed.” So you’ll need to apply for a Special Permit with the Planning Board to designate your zone as a Rural Residential Zone, and even if that happens (which is not easy to get because all your neighbors will have to vote in favor of the zone change) you will still have restrictions, see current official ordinance for Rural Residential Zone as it stands right now:
View attachment 3784235
It is unclear what happened to the __ proposal as there is no more information available about it other than the article that you sent. It may have been killed or it could still be pending and you can probably find out more information about it if you visited the City Hall (probably Planning Department).

In your situation, as long as neighbors weren’t complaining, it was all good. But as soon as the neighbors started complaining the City had to take action since having chickens on your property in your Zone is illegal. So, again, the only way to change this is to apply for a Special Permit, which may take months if you were to initiate the process and you were only given 7 days to remove the chickens from your property.
—

So after contacting the city council member who made the proposition to allow chickens in residential areas last year, I was told to contact the city planner, which I did.
He finally returned my call today.

Because we are in a Residential A area, obtaining a license to have the chickens isn’t possible, according to the planner.

The process would have to be petitioning for a zone change, and only when that gets approved, then you can file for a special permit.

The city planner said it’s really difficult to achieve this, so his advice was to contact the city council member again and request that his proposal be brought up again.
Apparently the proposal actually timed out and “expired” so it never really for accepted or denied. Supposedly because it was an election year, nobody really wanted to deal with that so it wasn’t a priority.

I will talk to the council member again to discuss bringing up the proposal again, and the planner told me another route is doing a city petition through the city website. With just 10 registered voters petitioning for an issue, it forces the city to have a hearing to resolve it.

So this is great news actually. If the proposal was never rejected that means there is a high likelihood that it may get approved this time around, if the council member is willing to go through the process of bringing up again.
Planner said this would be the best thing we can do right now is get involved in bringing it up again because, he said, if the council member wanted to he could begin tomorrow and the process could be much faster than expected.


So I’m celebrating over here. If there’s a hearing I will definitely get involved.

 

[nuthatched]

Rat x is a poison that has no effect on anything that's not a rodent.

 

[Sally PB]

We’ve been catching them a little at a time.

Sadly, rats reproduce "a lot at a time."

Search here on BYC for other ideas; you're not the only one with this issue.

 

[Kiki]

Feed is in a big plastic tub, rat proof. I’ve seen rats eating the food out in the run, even in broad daylight.

Poison isn’t really an option because the chickens free range often. So we have been using traps ever since we discovered rats but they must keep reproducing or something to be causing this big of an issue.

Make a rat proof coop AND run.

 

[paradisepentacoop]

Needling your neighbors makes living tense and turns this whole thing into a Cold War. I personally wouldn't recommend that route, as I want to have peace at home instead of fear/resentment

 

[Sally PB]

Once you cross the "tit for tat" bridge, there is usually no going back unless/until one of you moves. That might be a long time.

 

[All4Eggz]

We have done so much work on this coop in the last few years. Upgrades, additions etc. It has housed thousands of eggs and sheltered hundreds of chicks throughout the years.

I’m praying we are still able to put it to use after some time!

 

[Sally PB]

Thinking of moving the coop to the other side of the property, it would be almost an acre away from the complaining neighbor’s fencing.

While that might not deter the rats from roaming, it might help with other potential problems, like noise or smell, in case the neighbor has mentioned those.

Rats might have discovered the chickens' feed, and moved in for that. Can you keep the feed in a rat-proof feeder and container?

Keep in mind any poisons put out for the rats might harm your chickens.

Good luck. I hope you resolve this issue.