RECENT COMMENTS
City Council to consider urban chickens, CAR review, bicycles, parking, & more…
The agenda for Monday’s City Council meeting (PDF) has a number of items of local interest:
Ord. No. 2012-232 (Patrons: Mr. Conner and Mr. Agelasto) – To amend and reordain ch. 102, art. IX, div. 1 of the City Code by adding therein a new section numbered 102-441 for the purpose of making it unlawful for any person to attach a bicycle, motorcycle or moped to a City-owned tree and to amend and reordain City Code § 102-439, concerning the impoundment of bicycles, for the purpose of authorizing police officers to impound bicycles, mopeds or motorcycles, which, for a period of more than 72 consecutive hours, have been attached to City-owned trees, posts, signs or other property owned by the City.
Ord. No. 2013-12 (Patron: Mr. Agelasto) – To amend and reordain ch. 102, art. VI, div. 1 of the City Code by adding therein a new section numbered 102-246 and to amend and reordain City Code § 102-243, concerning parking violations and penalties for noncompliance with certain parking requirements, both for the purposes of requiring that the curbside wheels of vehicles parked on streets parallel to a curb shall be no more than [12] 18 inches from such curb and imposing a fine for the violation of such requirement. (As Amended)
Ord. No. 2013-47 (Patron: President Samuels) – To amend and reordain City Code § 114-402.2, concerning permitted accessory uses and structures in the R-1 Single- Family Residential District, for the purpose of including the raising or keeping of no more than four female chickens as a permitted accessory use.
Res. No. 2013-R47 (Patron: President Samuels) – To reverse the decision of the Commission of Architectural Review which denied a certificate of appropriateness for vinyl replacement windows on a home located at 2916 Monument Ave.
I noticed that it said chickens in the R-1 district. I would imagine this won’t be many homes in Church Hill since those lots are 20,000 square feet. I’m in R-5 at 5,000 square feet.
Good catch! The City’s Zoning Guide (PDF) gives a good idea of where the R-1 zones are located. More like “suburban chickens”, I guess.
Zoning is written strangely. Most of the other R zones allow uses that are listed in R1. Chickens will be allowed in most of the residential areas if you comply with the space and distance requirement.
It is a shame that they are only looking at R-1 single family dwellings. Many of us here in church hill would love to have fresh eggs as well.
Blue wheeler sells fresh eggs
R-1 uses tile up into the more dense residential zoning districts, so this will impact more dense residential neighborhoods like Church Hill. The other use restrictions will also need to be satisfied to permit chickens on a given property.
Can you unpack that a little?
When you say “tile up”, that means that an R-5 *would* be able to have chickens, if it meets the requirements below?
The only use restrictions in the new language allowing chickens (PDF) is that:
1) they have to be in the back yard,
2) in a pen no closer than 15 feet to an adjacent house,
3) and that the pen can’t be in “within any required yard”.
’tile up’ means that R-1 is the base zoning for residential, it’s uses are ALL allowed in the other R zones. so any single family residential property could have chickens as long as they can meet the site restrictions.
From the City’s Zoning Handbook (PDF):
For R-5 and R-6 (most of this area), it says that
Permitted principal uses:
• All R-1permitted principal uses;
Permitted accessory uses and structures:
• All R-1 permitted accessory uses;
Is this the bit that would allow more folks to have chickens, then, if allowed in R-1?
Ok, thanks Andrea!
Next clarification: by “site restrictions” – does that mean the 3 things from #9 above, or is that something else?
yes, at the beginning of each R-neighborhood zoning description there should be those two lines that say that all R-1 are permitted.
yes, as far as zoning goes those three things are the site restrictions. there are other considerations of permits and fees that are not in the zoning ordinance but are going to be administered through animal control. i think there are also rules about how to store feed properly to not attract vermin…things like that.
AWESOME, THANK YOU!
All of this kind of made my head hurt.
isn’t the word zoning from the latin for ‘headache’? if not, it should be.
Interesting to see the language in 102-439. I didn’t know that bicycles could be impounded for being locked to city posts. The language concerning trees makes sense and should be enforced, given the risk of damage to the trees, but being prohibited from locking to street signs in a city that otherwise makes no effort to provide reasonable bike locking facilities is unreasonable. I’m glad to see that provision is not actively being enforced at least.
Luke – I think it’s more about abandoned or dead bikes, rather than use of the pole as a lockup.
@john_m, I think you’re right: the language in ordinance 102-439 specifically mentions bikes, etc. that are locked to City property for more than 72 consecutive hours.
The problem is that 72 hours is a bit short for declaring a bike abandoned (lots of reasons one would need to leave a bike parked for a few days, just as one would leave a car parked for a few days). Realistically, though, it doesn’t appear that the statute is enforced, so it’s probably academic.
The bicycle ordinance was withdrawn from the agenda; no explanation of why or of it’ll come back.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/08/woman-sells-chicken-diapers-in-wake-salmonella-outbreak/?test=latestnews