How many chickens are too many to have in residential areas?
The Haines Borough Planning Commission will take up that question at its Sept. 12 meeting. It’s been asked to consider relaxing restrictions on chickens that currently limit homeowners to three in the townsite’s residential zones.
More can be allowed with a conditional use permit.
Sara Chapell, who lives off Small Tracts Road, spoke in favor of the change at the Aug. 8 commission meeting. The Haines Borough recently fined Penny Fossman $400 for keeping six juvenile chickens – including a rooster – at her Cemetery Hill home.
Fossman, who is leaving town, was planning to give away the chickens that were left at the school after a class project. She has since gotten rid of them and is appealing her fine. It includes a $250 after-the-fact fee and a $150 permit fee, although borough officials said last week they’d waive the permit fee because the birds are gone.
“Backyard chickens have been growing in popularity in the past decade,” Chapell told the planning commission Aug. 8. “Backyard eggs are healthy and chickens help recycle food and yard waste and this reduces the waste stream into our landfill and contributes to local food production,” she said.
Three hens, however, are not enough to supply an average family with eggs, Chapell said.
The allowance for chickens is under “personal use agriculture.” Personal use agriculture allows keeping up to three animals grown for use as food that don’t produce odors, noise or objectionable, non-point source pollution. It also prohibits keeping of animals weighing 75 pounds or more.
Chapell said she’d like to see code changed to allow three animals, plus up to 10 hens, without a conditional use permit. “Six hens is about average for a family of four, but productivity of chickens declines with age, and families often supplement their flock with a few more birds.”
To deter bears, she said it may be useful to include language about ensuring feed is kept in a secure building and recommending use of electric fences.
She noted that the comprehensive plan encourages food production. “I believe the planning commission can clear this barrier to personal use egg production with a few, simple changes.”
Mayor Stephanie Scott said she supports the measure. She said she had a goat and raised rabbits on Union Street in the early 1980s. “I used to walk my goat in town,” Scott said, adding that she understood the need to keep roosters at bay.