Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Still winging it
Borough no closer to finding the right recipe for allowing chickens; community gardens offered as sites for pilot program
POTTSTOWN >> A modified model ordinance allowing backyard chickens in the borough would limit the practice to just over three percent of the residential parcels in town.
No decisions or firm recommendations have been made in
Pottstown’s ongoing chicken debate and the next step appears to be figuring out a way to have a pilot program, perhaps at some of Pottstown’s public community
gardens.
The subject of backyard chickens — currently banned under the borough’s animal ordinance — has become a political football since it exploded into the public square during the March 3 work session of Pottstown Borough Council.
That was when North Evans Street Katie Scanlan, a resident who has chickens and has been cited for having them, gave a detailed proposal on ways to make keeping chickens legal and less obtrusive.
Her ideas included requiring a permit, getting written permission from neighbors and banning roosters. The subject sparked a pointed debate among the council members.
Five days later, the council voted 4-3 to send the matter back to its “ordinance review committee” for further consideration.
The quarterly “ordinance review committee” occurred on April 21 and that’s when Danielle Baer, a community planner with the Montgomery County Planning Commission, presented the county’s model backyard chicken ordinance, which had been modified for Pottstown to make it even more restrictive.
Under the model Baer presented, a residential property in Pottstown would have to be at least a third of an acre in size for chickens to be allowed.
That’s only 217 of the borough’s 6,646 residential
properties, she confirmed.
The Pottstown proposal is also more restrictive than the county model by reducing the number of chickens allowed per acre; increasing the property line setbacks required and requiring that the coop provide a minimum of 10 square feet per chicken, instead of the three square feet outlined in the county model.
The proposal, which Baer emphasized is very preliminary and “fluid,” was crafted after she met with borough staff who outlined some of their concerns with reversing the current ban.
Baer said inquiries were made into how the issue is dealt with in Reading, where chickens were once allowed and are now banned; in Conshohocken, which has no regulations at all; in Phoenixville, which has a 25foot
setback requirement; and at the Chester County model ordinance, which she described as being more stringent than Montgomery County.
The borough cannot ban backyard chickens at rental properties, which assistant borough solicitor Matthew Hovey said could create legal problems, but they can be banned at properties with multiple dwelling units, he said.
“We’re trying to come up with a way to regulate this,” Borough Manager Justin Keller said during the meeting.
But Councilman Ryan Procsal, who represents Pottstown’s First Ward where under Baer’s proposal almost no properties would be allowed to keep chickens, remained opposed to allowing it at all.
Procsal, who is the chairman of the ordinance review committee which had previously rejected reversing the chicken ban, said council’s first responsibility is to promote “a good quality of life, which is not superseded by people’s desire for fresh eggs.”
Council President Dan Weand remained steadfastly opposed to allowing chickens.
“The number one thing is it is an extreme burden on the Licensing and Inspections Department and the Police Department,” said Weand. “It’s almost unenforceable.”
“Enforcement is a big part of it,” said Keller.
Just how big a part, remains an open question.
A Mercury review of the borough’s response to a Right-to-Know request indicates
that in 2020 police responded to 18 dog complaints and issued 39 violations. The police responded to no complaints about chickens in 2020, or 2021, and, as of March 22, had not responded to any dog complaints in 2021 either.
The review also showed that code enforcement officers issued three animal ordinance violation notices in 2020, all for excessive dog feces, and one in March 2021 for the same offense. There was one violation notice regarding chickens at a location in the 400 block of State Street in January of this year.
Weand said “in talking to other municipalities we found that Reading used to have an ordinance allowing chickens, but it got so out of hand, and so expensive, that they couldn’t control it so they changed the ordinance.”
He also pointed out that neighboring Lower Pottsgrove Township, which is less dense than the borough, does not allow chickens in a residential area.
Weand also insisted, not for the first time, that backyard chickens would attract foxes and even coyotes.
But resident Jennifer Green, who is opposing Weand in the Democratic primary on May 18 for the Ward 5 council seat, scoffed at Weand’s predictions and called them “scare tactics.”
She pointed out that while the proposal calls for limiting chickens depending on the property size, “no one is regulating people having multiple 75- to 80-pound dogs on lots half the size of what we’re talking about here.”
Councilwoman Lisa Vanni said the reasons offered for banning chickens “is punishing people for something that hasn’t happened yet. Anyone can come up with
a million reasons not to do something.”
She pointed out that the Borough of Conshohocken has no regulations regarding chickens and has reported no problems from those who have them there.
Vanni called Baer’s outline “a great starting point. We’ve spent entirely too much time discussing chickens. We have real problems we need people’s help within this borough. The fact is we have to find common ground here.”
That common ground may come in the form of a pilot program.
Although the meeting ended with no concrete direction other than to report to council that the matter will continue to be looked into, Baer agreed that the direction also seemed to be to look into how a pilot program might work.
One place it might work is in Pottstown’s four community gardens, run by the Mosaic Land Trust.
Director Daniel Price offered up his locations as a way to try the pilot program.
Two of those locations are on Chestnut Street in places where the lot sizes in the more tightly packed first ward, would prevent chickens from being kept under Baer’s proposal.
There is also a garden at Barth Elementary School, adjacent to the Bright Hope community.
“We’ve got people at those locations throughout the day,” Price told the committee.
Otherwise, the property size restrictions — which would least restrict properties in Rosedale, the North End, and lots along Manatawny Street — would “only allow affluent people to have chickens,” observed resident Marie Haigh, who supports allowing chickens.