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Chickens In The Yard (CITY) Proposed Ordinance Amendment
We studied ordinances from Portland, Denver, Madison, Seattle, Boise, Fort Collins, and New York and used them to draft a proposed ordinance amendment regarding the keeping of chickens Salem residential zones. We believe that the keeping of chickens should be regulated, but we also believe it should be allowed, just as it is in many cities across the nation.
Since the Oregon Department of Agriculture does not consider pot-bellied pigs or poultry to be livestock and because pot-bellied pigs are already permitted in Salem residential zones, we think it makes sense to combine these two species by simply amending the current ordinance.
Therefore, we propose that under SRC Chapter 146, Section 030 Special Uses Permitted in the Residential Single Family (RS) District, Item #13 “Keeping of a Miniature Swine” be amended to read “Keeping of a Miniature Swine and Domestic Chickens” and that Chapter 119, Section 070 “Keeping of Miniature Swine” be amended to include the following:
KEEPING OF DOMESTIC CHICKENS
(a) Single family residences within the City of Salem shall be permitted to keep up to five hens without a permit. A permit issued by the City is required to keep more than 5 hens. Such permit shall be applied for within 30 days of acquiring the chickens and will require a one-time application fee of $25.
(b) Roosters are strictly prohibited in the city.
(c) Fowl may not be kept in front yards where they can be easily seen from the street.
(d) Selling, breeding, or raising chickens for meat is prohibited.
(e) Chickens must be kept in an enclosure at all times and have access to shelter from the rain. It shall be unlawful for any person to allow any fowl owned by him or her to escape or roam at large.
(f) Feed will be secured in a manner that will prevent access by rodents or other pests.
(g) Any coop, pen, or other enclosure in which fowl are kept must be at least 25 feet from any residential structure on adjacent property.
(h) Chicken owners must keep the animals in a clean and sanitary condition. Any coop, pen, or other enclosure must be maintained in a manner that is free of insects and rodents, offensive odors, excessive noise, or any other conditions that constitute a public nuisance.
Click here to download the Chickens In The City Packet
How much noise do a couple of chickens make? I’ve never lived on a farm, but I know that roosters are the noisy ones (and I guess this only allows the hens).
A couple of chickens do not make much noise at all, less than other domesticated pets. They go to bed when it gets dark and do not make any sound all night. The most noise they make is a brief joyous cackle during the day when they lay an egg.
When will we hear what the City Council has decided? It seems very logical to me to be able to raise backyard chickens in Salem. They are one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways to get a healthy source of protein in your diet. Also they make very good pets.
I have no problem with people raising a few chickens. Although I’m probably too lazy to raise my own chickens:).
I’ve lived in several cities that allow chickens including Portland and Denver. There were no problems in either place and I lived in each place 5 years. Also I have friends in Corvallis and Eugene (where chickens are legal) and they’ve had no problems either. Salem folks are just as neighborly and responsible (or more so) than people in the above named cities and we’ll do just fine too! I hope City Council doesn’t insult us by thinking Salem can’t do just as well as her neighboring cities. If they vote no I think it is a vote of “No Confidence” in Salem’s ability to handle this responsibility. If so I will be very offended.
I support hens in the neighborhood. I think they are less annoying that most dogs and they actually produced a food product. I have lived next to chickens before and I found them to be pleasant and even helped keep down the insect population.
I’ve raised chickens twice, when we lived in Pendleton and in Idaho. They are cleaner then cats and dogs, far quieter then dogs and actually have some use other than companionship (and/or questionable protection). Each time I had over a dozen and they were not a nuisance by any definition of the word. 5 hens (no ROOSTERS, they are annoying and loud) even in everyone in Salem’s yard would cause no problems. Home grown eggs are safer then store bought and the whole process is excellent for teaching children where some of their food comes from. Portland and a couple surrounding towns even allow chickens – WHY NOT SALEM? I’m guessing (based on the responses of the councilmen) some of our councilmen picture these mobile homes/trailers with ma and pa sitting on the porch smoking pipes and a hundred chickens running around at their feet with the youngins – not going to happen.
Chickens are:
Safe
Clean
Useful
Cheap to raise
Educational
Fun
Make good pets (seriously)
Quiet
Please, SGNA, support this!
I’m like Tucker b/c I don’t know if I’d have hens either. But I will be SO MAD if I didn’t have the same rights as people in Portland, Eugene and Corvallis. I’ve heard some people say if you want chickens then move to the country. Why should I when I can move to Portland, Corvallis or Eugene instead?! I have seriously considered moving to Corvallis or Eugene and if City Council thinks I’m too stupid to raise a few hens then that may be the last straw for me. l can go somewhere that respects it’s citizens more and I’ll be taking my tax dollars and my medical skills with me!
[...] If you live in the South Gateway neighborhood (it’s a big one, I didn’t even know which one I was in til I looked), please go to http://sgna.us/ and leave a comment in support of chickens in our yards in the post “Should residents be allowed to raise up to 5 chickens inside the city limits?“. [...]
Yes! I would like to see South Gateway support this. I attended the meeting when Dana from C.I.T.Y. presented this and all comments that night were positive.
I would like SGNA to support the CITY proposal. It was very well thought out regarding regulations and keeping things tolerable for all.
My grandmother always kept a few hens and they were quiet and there was no smell so long as they were not crowded together. After they were done with their laying years they were pets of my Aunts because each had her favorite. They are sweet animals and I think just as smart as a pet parrot.
There is a lot of support for the CITY chicken folks at my work and only one naysayer out of the 10 of us. My vote is Yes.
The Chickens In The Yard proposal is well-thought out and very detailed. I was very impressed with the thoroughness of the presentation and ask SGNA to support the CITY proposal. When 82% of all U.S. cities allow chickens and with Salem and Hillsboro being the only cities in Oregon that do not allow them at this time…I say support the proposal…we all need to do our part to be self-sustainable in all times not just when the economy is grim.
Considering that many major cities allow chickens within city limits and report few, if any, resulting problems, I think it’s only good business for the city of Salem to allow chickens in residential areas. Chickens in the Yard has put together a well considered and intelligent proposal and they deserve our full support. Even if I never choose to have a chicken in my yard, I don’t think it’s my right to deny others the right to do so. I fully support chickens within city limits and urge anyone with concerns to read the Chickens in the Yard proposal fully before deciding against this proposal.
I was born and raised on a farm and I do understand the value of a fresh egg. I also understand what happensa when you have chikens and the like around your dwelling. It will draw into the neigborhood other kritters that want to eat the chikens. It will cause more problems than what the positives bring. They smell but it is possible we will get am ear mark to study how to reduce the smell. All in all it is bad for Salem I will support a no vote on this.
Respectfully,
Pat Turnidge
Article from the Corvallis Gazette Times
Cooped up in Corvallis
By KYLE ODEGARD
Gazette-Times reporter
Tour shows off households with chickens or ducks
Alysia Greco lives near Corvallis High School, but she and her fiancee, Alex Irving, are aspiring farmers, so they have a nice garden. And five chickens.
“You can’t have cows in the city. You can’t have goats in the city. You can’t have sheep in the city. But you can have chickens,” said Greco, 31.
On Sunday, dozens of locals stopped by to check out Greco and Irving’s backyard coop, which was part of a self-guided tour called “Cooped Up in Corvallis.” The Corvallis Environmental Center organized the event, which included eight households with chickens or ducks, as a way to promote sustainability.
Leslie Van Allen, the center’s garden education director, said raising chickens was a way households could provide themselves with local and healthy food. And the birds create fertilizer for gardens, too.
Trucks that bring eggs to the grocery store use fossil fuels and create pollution, Van Allen added.
She said urban chickens are a growing trend, as more people are trying to produce their own food.
One stop on the tour had 170 visitors on Sunday, she said.
Steve Cook’s household also was on the tour. Cook, 60, has 11 hens that roam his backyard.
“The eggs are amazingly better from chickens that are getting grass. And then they’re fresh of course,” he said.
Cook also just likes chickens, and the way they’re always tirelessly looking for something. He said he’s named each of his birds, and each has a different personality.
“My wife laughs at me,” Cook said.
Greco said that her five hens provide more eggs than she and her fiancee can eat, so the neighbors get some too, and the birds also provide plenty of entertainment.
“They make me laugh every day. They’re just silly animals,” she said.
Married couple Sean and Barb White of Corvallis took the tour Sunday, and were particularly interested in Greco and Irving’s light-activated coop door, which slowly closes at night, and slowly opens in the morning. That way, Greco or Irving don’t have wake at dawn to let the birds out, or be around to shut them in at dusk. The birds naturally flock to the coop at night.
While chickens are permitted in the city, fowl that make too much foul noise could fall under a nuisance animal section of the ordinance. Greco said there hasn’t been any complaints from her neighbors. Then again, college students live nearby.
The Whites said they want hens to have homegrown eggs.
“There’s a little bit of enjoying the birds themselves, the noises they make,” Sean White said.
“This is a perfect kind of research,” Barb White added.
I fully support the proposal to allow chickens in Salem. If the city ordinace allows a 100 pound pig, I see no reason to disallow chickens.
Chickens are both an educational and a highly useful pet.
The city council wants to know where our neighborhood stands. Please vote on this issue!
Backyard gardens and chickens a growing sight around Portland
05:59 PM PDT on Monday, March 23, 2009
By KEELEY CHALMERS, kgw.com
Backyard gardens You may have heard about the Victory Gardens during World War II — and a similar scene is making a come-back. During this economic crisis more and more people are turning to their own backyards to save a buck.
“I do 7 kinds of berries,” Kate Kinne said. “I have an apple tree, fig tree, all vegetables, eggs. I don’t have to go too far out of my yard to get food.”
Kinne is one of a growing number of Northwesterners growing their own food. She says she uses her garden for everything.
She even gets her eggs from her own chickens. Kinne estimates her backyard garden probably saves her at least a $150 a month in grocery bills. Not only does she eat and sell her home grown food. Kinne also trades it.
“I do a chiropractor and a massage therapist, so pretty much my whole healthcare is taken care of,” laughed Kinne.
At Al’s Garden Center in Sherwood business has been booming lately as more and more people look to save money by planting their own fruits and veggies.
“Last year we saw a trend in the edibles. People started planting more edibles gardening themselves and this year we’re seeing more … we planned for more and we’re even outselling what we planned for,” explained garden expert Mark Bigej.
Bigej says there is many benefits of backyard gardens. Not only can you save money by growing you own food, but you also know exactly where your food is coming from. Fresh, economical, and as close as your own backyard.
Here is the latest update on the chicken debate.
Council seeks ways to allow chickens in city yards
THELMA GUERRERO-HUSTON Statesman Journal
September 15, 2009
Salem City Council on Monday dismissed a recommendation by the city’s Planning Commission to not allow the keeping of chickens in residential areas, deciding instead to work toward hatching a plan that could allow hens to reside in city limits.
In a 5-3 vote in favor of a substitute motion made by Ward 7 City Councilor Bob Cannon, councilors directed staffers to draft two separate ordinances regarding chickens and return the proposals to the council at a later meeting.
One ordinance would seek to amend the current city code’s definition of chickens as “livestock.”
If approved, the second ordinance would define chickens as pets.
“This way, it gets the issue out of land use, where it takes 45 or more days to get anything done,” said Ward 3 City Councilor Brad Nanke.
The chicken keeping topic first reared its head Feb. 23, when pro-chicken activists argued their case before city councilors.
Since then, the issue has been mulled on and off at Salem City Council meetings.
On June 22, the council approved a resolution seeking to amend city code concerning the keeping of chickens in backyards and to remove the regulation regarding city chickens from the zoning code.
In keeping with code procedures, the proposed amendment was forwarded to the city’s Planning Commission.
After giving notice to neighborhood associations, and the boards of Commissioners for Marion and Polk counties, the commission then held a public hearing about the issue Aug. 18.
Afterward, the commission voted against modifying the code.
In its response to the council, the commission wrote that public testimony showed that pets already allowed as domestic animals cause problems between neighbors.
“The addition of chickens, which are not generally accepted as urban pets, will infringe on those neighbors who are not as supportive of the keeping of chickens … resulting in potential impacts to quality of life contrary to the intent and purpose of the zoning code,” the commission
wrote.
tguerrer@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6815
Wow, I didn’t know about that up to now. Thanx!
Great read, had to re-read it a few times so I could process everything, but you seem to know what your talking about when it comes to animals!
Like your stuff – as a kindred chicken spirit I’ll be back!
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I completely agree, great aricle! I’m glad you went down that route
Salem, Oregon will finally allow backyard chickens effective Jan. 1, 2011.
For details of the ordinance, click the link below.
Salem’s Chicken Ordinance
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