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

[nuthatched]

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

 

[tlcmurphy]

Here’s my 2 cents.
When we joined this forum I recall the rules stating that some folks on here raise chickens (and other birds/animals) as food and some raise them as pets, and we should respect opinions other than our own.
Although not stated by BYC, it seems to me that some of us raise animals in farm or large area setting, and some of us raise them in our backyard should follow the same rules. I understand you don’t believe this @wkyongae but I think you could be more understanding of those of us that do.

Backyard chicken owner in metro Atlanta, 3 hens no roosters, less than an acre, and happy to be able to raise them.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

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[All4Eggz]

@All4Eggz, I was wondering if you've heard any updates or if the vote has happened yet? I just heard about something that sounded similar to your situation and am hoping its not yours.

Yes, I’ve been meaning to update.

Bad news.

After all that, after our team worked so hard to put together an ordinance that had positive changes… it didn’t go through. The most recent update genuinely had every change to make it very likely to pass. Everything they wanted changed about it, we changed.

I wasn’t at the vote but it was 7-5 and it was a no.

Very disheartening. I think now the only chance is to do a petition. That’ll force it back into discussion and then they’ll know we’re not backing down.

The councilor that helped put it together said he could bring it up again after this year’s election. He said it’ll probably have a better chance passing at that point.
The councilor said they didn’t even read his proposed updates and voted it down. I don’t know how that works but maybe they came into the vote already knowing they want to vote no. Either way, it is not fair to anyone that put so much effort into this, especially the two main councilors. I feel as thought it wasn’t given a serious chance. especially considering we all thought it was going to pass.


That’s that for now, and here again, the ride begins. just when we thought it was over. Funny how that works.

 

[nuthatched]

Move the coop away from the neighbors would, I think, lessen the immediate issue. Then get the rats under control.

 

[sourland]

Don't leave poison in the open. Use a bait box and chunx bait. You should have been doing this from the beginning.

Immediately implementing a protocol to eliminate rats on your property, two to three tamper proof bait boxes, will go a long way in your plight. It shows the authorities you are a responsible livestock owner and plan to never be in a position where others can claim you are the reason for rodents in the future. Calling an exterminator after complaints arise is not showing anything.

This ! Show that you are the solution - not the problem.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[All4Eggz]

Today was the hearing with the planning board.

It seemed like everyone from the board was in favor. That was reflected in the *unanimous* “yes” vote to bring it back to the city council. So big, big success.
I had another 15 or so people come today. The board was impressed.

The only pushback today was from one resident who spoke out. Her argument was not strong. Thankfully.

Myself along with two others went up to speak in favor and received a good response from the board.


They all voted for it to go back to the council “positively”, I don’t fully understand the wording they used in the process of voting but I believe what it means is that they uphold what the city council put in as a petition, and support another hearing to get input and then eventually get it voted on.

So the next hearing is in a few days or maybe a couple weeks, I didn’t hear about a date yet. Since they left public input open, the public can still take part in the next hearing. That one won’t be official voting as far as I’m aware. Once they close public input they have to schedule two more hearings in which they will vote in real-time if they will put the ordinance into law.
It’s a big process but if I learned anything from this - it’s “don’t give up”. If this is a situation you’re in- do everything you can. If there is no option left- find one. Just so happens that I had to go to the lengths of trying to change the law. For most I hope and pray it’s much easier, if they are ever in a situation similar to me.

But just know, it’s possible.

Thank you all for your kind words and support! Making a city-wide difference one step at a time! I’ll do whatever it takes!