Public Hearing on Ferndale Chickens Set

Raising chickens in Ferndale is a peck closer to being compliant under city ordinance.

The revised ordinance addressing the raising and keeping of fowl in Ferndale is to be discussed at the next Planning Commission meeting Sept. 14. If approved by the commission, it will then go to City Council to decide if it needs to be revised again or enacted.

Currently, it is against city ordinance to keep a chicken coop within 150 feet of any standing structure, which ultimately makes it impossible for any Ferndale residents to own and raise chickens based on lot sizes in the city. On July 27, a revision to the ordinance addressing the raising and keeping of fowl in Ferndale was presented to the Ferndale Planning Commission.

The revisions to the ordinance would make it possible. Revisions included scaling back the 150 feet requirement to 10 feet – coops would have to be at least 10 feet away from any standing structure. The chickens must remain in the back yard and a resident raising chickens could have no more than three chickens. Roosters would  be prohibited.

Other ordinances address concerns of chicken raising

The common concerns of residents, which include attracting rats and foul odors, would be upheld under current ordinances with the city, said Community and Economic Development Director Derek Delacourt.

"The raising and keeping of any animal requires residents to follow city ordinances," he said. "When people don't keep up any animals there are negative impacts, regardless of what kind of animal it is."

The revision of the chicken ordinance wouldn't specifically cover these concerns because, as Delacourt said, current ordinances already regulate this. "Major concerns of odor and vermin are enforced in a multitude of ordinances in the city already," he said. "For the odor itself, I don't think it would be violated without a lot of other ordinances being violated."

Chickens not new to cities

Delacourt said he consulted other cities in Michigan that have revised or enacted ordinances to allow residential chickens. Traverse City, Madison Heights and Ypsilanti were discussed at the July 27 Ferndale meeting.

"Similar to Ferndale there was a strong desire to implement some type of relaxed or flexible ordinance (for chickens) as far as city ordinances," Delacourt said. "They've gone through a lot of the same questions and discussions with council and staff."

Delacourt said there has been little uproar in Traverse City since it enacted its ordinance, now in its second year. "There have been very few complaints," Delacourt said. "(In Traverse City) only 10 to 15 permits were pulled. There was one complaint because someone had a rooster, but that was an ordinance violation anyway and taken care of."

Ferndale's new city manager, April McGrath, was the assistant city manager in Ypsilanti, a city that also went through a chicken ordinance revision in 2008.

"We had a lot of meetings about it. People said chickens were dirty, spreading diseases, were loud. But we prohibited roosters, the health department got involved and we controlled how many (chickens) a resident could have. All of the concerns were dealt with through ordinances," McGrath said.

Ypsilanti hasn't had many complaints since then, McGrath said. "One resident had a rooster, but got rid of it when the city found out because it was against the ordinance," she said.

For Ypsilanti, 28 permits were pulled after the ordinance was enacted but very few were renewed by those residents, McGrath said.

For Madison Heights, Delacourt said, the concerns and solutions were the same for the chicken ordinance. "Vermin, rats, noise, those issues, for the most part, haven't come into play," he said.

Public hearing set for Sept. 14

The revised ordinance will be discussed at the next Planning Commission meeting 7 p.m. Sept. 14 at City Hall. This meeting is considered a public hearing. It is not a public forum, but time will be allowed to discuss the chicken ordinance. If approved by the Planning Commission, it will then go to City Council.

In April, Ferndale Patch reported on and the efforts of Laura Mikulski, who was pushing the desire at the city level. She had started a Ferndale Chickens website and an online petition that has more than 200 signatures.

The benefits in allowing more chickens include fresh eggs, fertilizer and educational opportunities for residents, and eliminates animal cruelty from the process of egg gathering for chickens, Mikulski said. “It’s about the most depressing life an animal can have,” she said of chickens that are kept in small cages in order to harvest their eggs. “The idea that eggs from the grocery store are coming from that is kind of horrifying.”

See Part 6A of the attached PDF of the July 27 Planning Commission meeting agenda for the revised chicken ordinance.