The Chesterton Town
Council may have a soft spot for chickens.
At their meeting
Monday night, members voted 5-0 to approve on first reading--but on first
reading only--an ordinance which would allow folks who live on lots of a
half-acre or smaller to keep chickens.
But only under
closely defined conditions, including the following:
* A maximum of four
hens--but no roosters--would be permitted.
* They would need
to be kept in a securely enclosed rear yard, in a coop with a minimum area
of 10 square feet per chicken.
* They would need
to be provided water and feed at all time.
* All supplies of
feed would have to be contained so as not to attract vermin.
* 4H-ers who
already keep chickens in town, under current Town Code, would be exempt from
the conditions of this ordinance.
Town Attorney Chuck
Lukmann told members that his associate, Julie Paulson, did an eggsellent
job researching the issue and found that a large number of municipalities in
Indiana already do permit the keeping of chickens under similar conditions.
Member Emerson
DeLaney, R-5th, made it clear that he, for one, preferred not to cast a
final vote on the ordinance on Monday but to wait two more weeks, should
some last-minute tweaking become necessary. But DeLaney also made it clear
that he rather likes the idea of chicken-keeping in town. Over the last
month or so, he said, four people have approached him to “adamantly” voice
their opposition to chickens. But “14 others want it,” DeLaney added. “Make
that 15. I’m for it too.”
“There’s nothing
wrong with chickens,” DeLaney continued. “Dogs are worse. Dogs leave waste
in your yard. And lots of other communities in Indiana allow chickens.”
Member Nick Walding,
R-3rd, made this point as well: current Town Code already allows those who
reside on lots of larger than one-half acre to keep chickens. But Town Code
in no way protects them from the code officer if their hens become a
nuisance or a health concern, Walding said.
Earlier in the
meeting, Victoria Dudek made an impassioned, intelligent plea for urban
chickens from the floor, after noting that she and her husband moved here
eight years ago and “fell in love with the town” precisely because it’s so
“innovative” a municipality.
Chickens, Dudek
said, “are not burdensome or disruptive at all,” so long as they are kept,
as all pets must be kept, “responsibly.” Urban chickens “keep the bugs at
bay,” their droppings “fertilize gardens,” and their eggs are healthier than
those produced in mass-laying operations.
Any number of big
cities already allow urban chickens, Dudek added, including South Bend,
Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oreg. Permitting them in
Chesterton would continue the town’s tradition of innovation, she said,
would likely attract new residents, and could conceivably prove to be a
small arrow in the quiver of economic development.
One person did
object to the chicken ordinance, Paul Tharp, who at the council’s last
meeting argued that allowing chickens in Chesterton would be unfair to his
sister, who years ago was forced to move outside town limits because her
potbellied pig was found to be in violation of the same provision of Town
Code which prohibits chickens. On Monday Tharp suggested that the resident
who first broached the issue in November, Marcus Key of 2010 W. Porter Ave.,
is probably unaware of the sporadic way in which hens lay eggs. Key would
need many more than four hens, Tharp said, to keep his family in eggs.
Key, however,
apparently does happen to know something about chickens, having kept them on
the farm he grew up on in Kentucky. “I’m not looking for an egg factory,” he
said. “I want pet hens for my kids, to give them the same experience I had
growing up.”