THUNDER BAY – The long run to develop a bylaw that would allow for up to six hens to be cooped on residential properties within city limits has failed.
City Council voted 8-4 on Monday to defeat an amended version of the backyard chicken bylaw that came before it on June 20.
Although the bylaw contained no aesthetic parameters for chicken coops, the proposal included strict limits on their size, distance from adjacent dwellings, and manure storage.
Amendments passed before Monday’s vote additionally insisted chickens would need to be contained within those coops and would not have been permitted elsewhere on the lot.
Coun. Aldo Ruberto was the bylaw’s most vocal opponent, declaring he had no faith its regulations would be enforceable.
“Keep in mind that 99 per cent will probably be nice people that do it right but I am concerned about the one per cent that flaunt the laws, that abuse the laws and take advantage of things,” Ruberto said.
“I don’t see any teeth in this bylaw that makes me feel comfortable showing the ones who don’t have chickens that their quality of life won’t be affected.”
Administration found there would be “very little value but considerable cost” to creating a permitting system for backyard chickens and The Thunder Bay District Health Unit recommended no such system be created as it found “no significant public health issue at stake with chicken-keeping or urban chicken coops as described in the proposed bylaw.”
Only Couns. Rebecca Johnson, Linda Rydholm, Shelby Ch’ng and Andrew Foulds supported the final product of a movement that began when urban chickens were introduced to the Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy last year.
Foulds is the chair of the EarthCare Advisory Committee, which developed the strategy. While he praised it as a progressive document on sustainable nutrition, he expressed his disappointment that opponents of backyard chickens had won the public narrative.
“This is one aspect of that strategy that we endorsed and I think in this debate, that broader view has been lost,” he said.
“There has been such a narrow focus on chickens and not that broader application that this is really about a food strategy that if some people choose to engage in, they can. Raising chickens is not for everyone.”
“There are so many young people in our community who feel this is the direction we should be going. Around this table tonight, I don’t see that being accepted and I think that’s sad, I really do,” Johnson said.
“This was an opportunity for our community to do something innovative, creative and be one of the leaders and I’m sorry that we’re not going to be there.”
According to city general manager Mark Smith, the bylaw department will accept complaints over existing backyard chicken coops on a case-by case basis but officers will not be actively pursuing coop demolition.
Administration estimates there could be as many as 300 existing residential chicken coops within city limits.
Prior to the bylaw having been written, administration had only ever received three complaints pertaining to backyard chickens.
