Urban hen decision disappoints owners
A citizen who keeps four hens in her backyard says she’s disappointed councillors want to ban urban chickens - particularly since the decision seems to be based on a questionable expense.
Myra Hirschberg says she wonders how the Peterborough Humane Society (PHS) will need $53,800 more annually to enforce proposed new rules that would have allowed city residents to keep two to four hens in their backyards.
Yet at a meeting at City Hall on Tuesday, no councillors questioned the cost quoted by the PHS in a report. That struck Hirschberg as odd.
“It seems like an unusually high sum,” she said.
Councillors’ rejection of an idea to allow backyard hens in the city, on Tuesday night, came as a bit of a flip-flop.
When councillors first considered a ban on urban chickens last year, there was outcry: more than 1,000 people signed an online petition in support of hens, and citizens spoke overwhelmingly in support of it at a public council meeting.
After that, councillors asked staff to scrap the idea of a chicken ban and develop a set of rules to allow hens. But when those proposed rules were reviewed by councillors on Tuesday, they were rejected mostly based on cost.
A report to councillors from the PHS stated that it would charge the city $408,994 annually for animal-control services if hens were allowed (up from the current rate of $355,194).
Hirschberg said she was surprised councillors didn’t question the cost: the PHS was asking for a 15 per cent budget increase, she says, to register and deal with roughly 200 chicken coops (that’s the number of coops that PHS and the city estimate already exist in Peterborough.)
She said that increase seems “bizarrely high” - particularly considering they’ve only had to deal with roughly eight chicken complaints annually, over the last few years.
But Andrew Fraser, the executive director of PHS, said the cost isn’t inflated at all.
“It’s as accurate a number as we can estimate,” he said.
Fraser said it’s inaccurate to say the PHS is asking for a 15 per cent budget increase to respond to just a handful of chicken-related complaints in a year. He said it’s going to cost money to register an influx of new chicken coops, if hens were allowed.
Fraser also says he’d expect an increase in complaints about chickens if the city allowed backyard hens - lots of people “aren’t fond” of urban coops, he said (although Hirschberg says urban chicken keepers find they get no complaints from their neighbours).
Nonetheless, Fraser said PHS would have to train staff to educate people on how to properly care for chickens. They’d also have to build proper facilities to house impounded chickens - which also costs money.
Although the PHS is about to build a new facility, there no areas for holding chickens in the design - it would be onerous and expensive to add it to the design now, Fraser said.
Besides, Fraser said PHS doesn’t think chickens can really be cared for properly, away from a farm.
“We believe these animals are best kept and best cared-for in a setting that’s more rural,” he said.
Helen McCarthy, a citizen who has six hens, says she’s “extremely disappointed” in council’s decision.
She says she doesn’t understand why hens are deemed farm animals while cats, dogs and even pot-bellied pigs are considered domestic under the city’s animal bylaw.
“Personally I would like to see Peterborough move in the direction of integrating agriculture within the city,” she wrote in a digital message to The Examiner.
“It seems like council has somehow remained ignorant of the facts and simply don’t want the hassle of dealing with the desires of their constituents.”
Councillors were sitting as committee of the whole on Tuesday when they rejected the bylaw that would have allowed chickens - that means it needs a final vote before council on Monday.
Citizens can speak to council at the meeting, before the vote.