Backyard chicken coops in Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot will have to wait until next summer.

The town of Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot is moving ahead with its plan to legalize backyard chicken coops, but the bylaw will not be in place in time for this summer.

The town council passed a motion last month directing the clerk’s office to draw up a draft bylaw, which the council will study at its July or August council meeting. The final bylaw is likely to be passed this fall, according to city manager Katherine Vincent, so interested residents will probably have to wait for next summer to start collecting freshly laid eggs in their own backyards.

“It really makes sense in this community, since about 70 per cent of the territory is agricultural and the rest really lends itself to urban agriculture. This council has a very green, environmentally-friendly vision, so this idea caught on,” Vincent said.

The council will be looking at how other cities where backyard chicken coops are permitted regulate the practise to ensure noise and odours are not a problem for neighbours, she said.

Raising chickens is legal, or at least not banned, in several Canadian cities, including Vancouver, Victoria, London and Westmount.

Some cities, such as Vancouver, have bylaws that allow backyard chicken coops but restrict the number of hens allowed per household and ban roosters, for example. Others, such as Westmount, do not expressly all low resi-

dents to raise chickens, but have no bylaw on the books banning the practise.

In Montreal, chickens are permitted only in the borough of Rosement-La Petite-Patrie, where only community organizations (not homeowners) are permitted to raise them for educational purposes.