Sean C. Morgan
The City Council is considering whether chickens should be given more room to legally dwell in Sweet Home.
The city’s existing ordinance requires at least half an acre of land for a resident to keep fowl inside the city limits, said City Manager Craig Martin.
“Some of us in the community believe that, while this ordinance was well-meant, it is out of date and should be revisited and revised as it has been in other, much larger and more urban cities, such as Eugene and Portland,” said Bruce Hobbs, a resident of Sweet Home, in a letter to the council. “As people are becoming more concerned with the safety and quality of their food, chickens are an excellent choice to complement urban food production.
“Backyard chickens also pose a very low risk of infectious disease when kept in a low-density backyard enclosure.”
People are looking for ways to localize their food production for many reasons, Hobbs said. One of the main concerns is the safety of the food. By raising chickens in the backyard for eggs and possibly meat, people can control how they are medicated. Local, low-density environments decrease the changes for harmful diseases to spread among chickens or people.
It increases the quality of the eggs and meat, he said. Instead of being weeks old, eggs are hours old and have only to be transported from the backyard. Without the growth hormones given to commercial chickens, the eggs and meat taste better.
Space requirements are low, about 2 square feet of roosting space and 2 square feet of outside run per chicken, Hobbs said.
“If they are limited to hens, this also prevents unnecessary wake-up calls from roosters to nearby neighbors,” he said.
Councilor Scott McKee Jr. told the council during its regular meeting on April 26 that he was planning on bringing up the subject that night.
“I support changing it and putting in specific guidelines for the citizens, so they know what they can do,” McKee said.
“Part of the reason we put chickens, there were roosters,” said Mayor Craig Fentiman.
“Up in the avenues we had a rooster,” said Councilor Greg Mahler, noting the problem with roosters. A bantam rooster, which ranged freely in the area of Ironwood and 4th Avenue, regularly sounded off at daybreak for a few years until a year or two ago when it disappeared, along with a small flock of hens.
Fentiman referred the matter to the Public Safety Committee for a recommendation, along with another request to allow tarantulas to be kept as pets in the city. City ordinance currently prohibits keeping stinging or venomous insects and arachnids.
Present at the council meeting were Marybeth Angulo, Fentiman, Jim Gourley, Mahler and McKee. Lorie Osborne and Ron Rodgers were absent.
In other business, the council:
n Accepted the resignation of Osborne for personal reasons.
Anyone interested in replacing her on the council may contact the city manager’s office at 367-8969. Applications and information are available at City Hall, 1140 12th Ave. Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. on May 20.
Any qualified voter who has resided in the city for at least one year may apply to fill the vacancy.