By Ward Peck

Editor

    Get ready for more chicken puns.

    Ten-year-old Olivia Collins’ campaign to allow
chickens as a permitted pet in South Portland drew a sizable crowd to
city council workshop Monday as well as bemused admiration from the
council members with several wondering if she is willing to run their
next reelection campaign.

    The normally empty seats at Monday’s workshop were
filled with about 50 supporters of Collins’ proposal to allow residents
to maintain urban or city chicken coops with about 10 of the audience
members a decade or more away from their first opportunity to vote.
Several audience held up placards with the now familiar “Give peeps a
chance,” motto Collins has used to gather support and more than 260
signatures.

    South Portland’s residential zoning ordinances
currently state “the keeping of farm-type animals, including but not
limited to horses, ponies, cattle, pigs and fowl, the keeping of dogs,
cats, and rabbits for commercial purposes and other uses offensive and
detrimental to the neighborhood are prohibited.”

    Collins along with her mother Stacy and father Neil
are requesting the ordinance be amended to allow chickens and crafted
ordinance language with several requirements including the number of
chickens allowed (roosters would remain prohibited) building standards
for coops and pens as well as consent for neighbors.

    At an earlier workshop, Collin’s proposal was met
with some skepticism from several councilors and city staff.

    South Portland Planning Director Tex Haeuser repeated that skepticism at Monday’s workshop.

    “We’re asking for trouble,” Haeuser said. “The
business of zoning is to limit nuisances. That’s what zoning is for.”

    Haeuser warned the council that allowing chickens
would create “a new class of complaints,” which will require the time
and attention of police, code enforcement and animal control employees.

    Haeuser referred to a letter written by State
Veterinarian Donald Hoenig in which Hoenig affirmed that chickens in
urban settings do not pose immediate threat to public safety or
neighborhood harmony with several qualifications. Haeuser read the
letter, stressing the qualifications, which included proper carcass
disposal and manure management, the need to follow best agricultural
management practices and keeping the birds segregated from wild birds
that are potential carriers of avian flu.

    “This is about maintenance,” Haeuser said. “There is no way to tell who will be a better maintainer.”

    Haeuser recommended the council maintain the
prohibition on chickens but include a provision that would allow the
city’s planning board or city council to grant exceptions on a
case-by-case basis provided certain criteria are met, including the
consent of all the neighbors within a certain distance of the applicant.

    Olivia Collin’s mother, referred to Hoenig’s letter
as well, although with a different interpretation that stressed the
veterinarian’s conclusion that the risks of backyard chickens are
minimal and easily managed. Stacy Collins said Hoenig’s qualifications
apply to the care required for other pets that are allowed, such as
dogs and cats.

    Olivia, as she has done over the last month in
newspaper stories, letters, on websites, petition drives and television
news, stressed the environmental benefits of chickens similar to the
benefits of a home vegetable garden: knowing where one’s food comes
from, reduced consumption of fossil fuel consumption due to
transportation, increased recycling at both ends of the chicken (they
eat garden scraps and their manure can be used as fertilizer) and
chemical-free pest control (chickens eat bugs, including ticks, Olivia
Collins said).

    When asked for a legal opinion on the proposed
ordinance, Mary Kahl, the city’s attorney expressed her own
reservations about its ability to pass constitutional muster. Kahl said
land use and property rights laws must be applied uniformly. Kahl said
allowing neighbors to hold a veto power over what another resident does
on their property would be unfair since the reason for the veto might
be arbitrary or unrelated to the chickens themselves, such as a
property dispute.

    “It must meet basic standards of fairness,” Kahl
said of the proposed ordinance. “Allowing one neighbor to keep someone
from doing something would not be appropriate.”

    Kahl suggested rather than regulate chickens through
zoning regulations, the city could create a licensing mechanism that
would require certain performance guarantees and could be subject to
enforcement and could be rescinded if not followed.

    Regardless of whether the law was a zoning
regulation or a licensing regulation, Kahl said the neighborhood
consent would be problematic and recommended against it.

    Following a lengthy discussion about the details of
the performance standards, the council agreed to move forward and set a
public hearing on the yet-to-be-drafted regulations.

    Councilor Linda Boudreau said, while she was against
the idea of chickens living next to her property, she is supportive of
the change.

    Because the zoning ordinance expressly prohibits
chickens within the city, the planning board will first need to discuss
the issue and draft a recommendation to the city council on changing
the zoning language.

    According to Haeuser, the first opportunity the planning board has to discuss the changes will be July 24.

    Mayor Claude Morgan, visibly eager to get the new
laws on the books seemed to be counting his chickens before they
hatched when he attempted to schedule a formal council hearing on the
matter before the planning board was even aware they would be making a
recommendation.

    Morgan set a public hearing for Aug. 6, the first opportunity following the July 24 Planning Board meeting.