Glendale Arizona rules

[JoyV]

Help please. I have had 5 chickens (hens) for a little over a year. My neighbor is not happy about them and called the city of Glendale today to get the chicken rules. According to my neighbor we are not allowed to have more than 1 chicken based on our space. The wording on the ordinance is confusing to me. Is this really saying I can only have 1 chicken per 10,000 SF,
Or is it saying they just need to be fenced and not The rule online says this: * I am SR17. I really love my chickens and would hate to get rid of them!! They are cooped at night but free range during the day in backyard.

SR-30, SR-17, SR-12: (Suburban Residential 30, 17, & 12) Raising and grazing of livestock, excluding swine, is permitted for a maximum of one (1) animal per ten-thousand (10,000) square feet of open space. The raising of poultry with the exception of male fowl, is permitted provided they are contained within a fence or corral. All livestock must be contained in a stock type fence and/or coral. Such fence of corral shall not be permitted closer than one-hundred (100) feet of any residence or living space on an adjacent lot including pool and/or patio. For corner lots, no such fence or corral shall be located closer to the side right-of-way line than the principal building.

 

[BlueBaby]

Hello, I'm not over there in Glendale, but maybe one of our other AZ. member's are or would know. Why don't you come to our states thread to ask?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/arizona-chickens.31227/page-7512

 

[jakedaniel]

Help please. I have had 5 chickens (hens) for a little over a year. My neighbor is not happy about them and called the city of Glendale today to get the chicken rules. According to my neighbor we are not allowed to have more than 1 chicken based on our space. The wording on the ordinance is confusing to me. Is this really saying I can only have 1 chicken per 10,000 SF,
Or is it saying they just need to be fenced and not The rule online says this: * I am SR17. I really love my chickens and would hate to get rid of them!! They are cooped at night but free range during the day in backyard.

SR-30, SR-17, SR-12: (Suburban Residential 30, 17, & 12) Raising and grazing of livestock, excluding swine, is permitted for a maximum of one (1) animal per ten-thousand (10,000) square feet of open space. The raising of poultry with the exception of male fowl, is permitted provided they are contained within a fence or corral. All livestock must be contained in a stock type fence and/or coral. Such fence of corral shall not be permitted closer than one-hundred (100) feet of any residence or living space on an adjacent lot including pool and/or patio. For corner lots, no such fence or corral shall be located closer to the side right-of-way line than the principal building.

You’re all good. Tell your neighbor, (nicely, of course), to call Code Enforcement if they feel so strongly about it, and when CE arrives, just show them a copy of this ordinance if they don’t already have it and let them tell your neighbor to pound sand. The 10k sq foot requirement is for LIVESTOCK, not POULTRY. Read closely, the ordinance treats them as two separate categories, as it should.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

That is a really badly written statute, but honestly, you should read it as part of the Code as a whole, not one one or two sentences in isolation.

SR17 zoning is controlled by Section 5.200 of your code, with the purpose of maintaining a residential character. Essentially, you get a house, park, or school on a property in that zoning. Conditionally, you can have some other buildings there, as long as they aren't offices and aren't in constant use, or serve as light infrastructure.

You are also allowed some incidental uses. Which are quite restrictive, honestly. No commercial production, you can't light the backyard basketball court, no signage, limited deliveries, low fences. Limited outbuildings. Oh, and pets. Also, Livestock, as described in Section 5.212

To wit:

******************************************

5.212 - Livestock.
A.
Raising and grazing of livestock, excluding swine, is permitted for a maximum of one (1) animal per ten thousand (10,000) square feet of open space. The raising of poultry with the exception of male fowl, is permitted provided they are contained within a fence or cage.
B.
All livestock must be contained in a stock type fence and/or corral. Such fence or corral shall not be permitted closer than one hundred (100) feet from any residence or living space on an adjacent lot including pool and patio. For corner lots, no such fence or corral shall be located closer to the side right-of-way line than the principal building.
C.
Accessory buildings used specifically for permitted animals, subject to Section 7.300, provided they are located within the area fenced for animals and maintain the same front, side, and rear yard requirement as provided for the principal building.
(Ord. No. 1772, 6-23-93)

******************************************

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Continued.

The best read of Section 5.212(a), unfortunately is as follows:

Take your total lot square footage, subtract from it you home, any outbuildings, pools, or other fenced spaces (such as a basketball court, garage, or screened patio). Divide the space remaining by 10,000 sq ft.** That whole number is the number of livestock you may have on the property. You may have Poultry as that livestock, so long as they are hens only, no males (adult or otherwise).

**The Poultry or other livestock must be contained within fencing as defined by code, set a very significant distance from your neighbor's buildings. If code enforcement wants to be a real problem, they could argue that the open space requirement means the area within the fence or corral, though that's a very grey interpretation, and I'd argue, not the best read of the code.

To have 5 birds in SR17 zoning, assuming a typical house footprint, you'd need a lot of about 1.25 acres.

Note that there WAS an effort to change Glendale's zoning a few years back, it went nowhere. Lots of signatures attempting to protect against a feared loss in property values.

Don't like my Interpretation of the Code? Ask the City of Glendale. If the prior poster's interpretation was correct, SR-17 would read like A-1 zoning re chickens. It doesn't. Under the typical rules of Statutory construction, Jake is (unfortunately for you) simply wrong.

and here is the view of one of the Glendale, AZ Council Members last time the ordinance (poorly drafted in my view) came up - Personal Blog

That said, I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, I'm not admitted to practice anywhere, and have no desire to step on the toes of the last remaining functioning medieval guild. This is but the opinion of a guy with odd reading habits. Sorry its likely not the answer you wanted.

 

[jakedaniel]

I stand corrected. Glad someone in here with better knowledge of the specifics here chimed in. Sorry to hear that they're that restrictive there.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Its remarkably poorly written. Apparently dates back to the mid 70s. I found reference to (but not copy of) some Administrative decision interpreting the statute from shortly after it was enacted, addressing some of the confusion.

I've helped draft, revise, support, oppose, or otherwise tinker with legislation (differing subject) in many of the States in this Union, some repeatedly, plus two foreign countries. Learned a few things. First, legislation never seems to be about policy - its usually intended to address either a valued constituent (big campaign donor), or named for some recent tragedy in the media (which it probably would not have prevented) - no matter where its being proposed, or the party of the legislator involved. Second, its not normally this badly drafted (possibly the only benefit of having the halls of State & Federal Gov't full of people with law degrees).

I can understand why you read it as you did Jake, and had there been some statutory language elsewhere in the Code regarding Poultry, you could have been right. That's why I never read statutes in isolation.

 

[O well whatever nevermore]

I'm late to the party, but wanted to clarify because I'm looking to move to Glendale, the search on the topic. I just called the City of Glendale; chickens are not treated as livestock. As long as you're zoned rural you can have roosters, if suburban you can have hens. If you're zoned regular residential, you can't. Suburban chickens have to be cooped; no free-range chickens allowed.

There's no limit on numbers, but noise and odor complaints could be a nuisance call, just like a barking dog.