City councilmen on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to limiting chickens to eight per home instead of giving residents free range on how many they own. They also approved provisions that would keep the animals 30 feet from neighbors’ homes and ban roosters.
“If I were looking at a house and the Realtor took me to somewhere that there was a chicken pen next door I would have to look at that with a tainted eye,” Groenenboom said.
Several councilmen said they wanted to find a balanced between Laird’s rights and that of his neighbors. The group gave preliminary approval to limiting chickens to eight, banning roosters and requiring chicken owners to obtain a permit and inspection as well as keeping coops clean at all times. The chickens would have to be kept 30 feet away from any neighboring home instead of the current 25 feet.
He said he uses the chickens both for show and for their eggs. But neighbors Susan and Ronald Borghesi and Dennis Groenenboom feel the chickens are a nuisance. The Borghesi family has lived in their home for 26 years and said they have adjusted to many changes in that time.
But one year into their free-range egg operation they have more demand – from local restaurants and cafes – for their eggs than their 550 Isa Brown hens can lay.
“We hope that the ministry will
stop walking with its head in the sand and wasting the time of Knesset members,
and will agree to developing advanced methods of breeding that are less
harmful,” Anonymous spokesman Ronen Bar said, noting that such conditions are
banned in 32 countries.
