City tells pair they’ve run afoul of bylaw
City rule limits noise, smell and number of chickens on Southland property
Robin Friesen wanted to farm. So she leased half an acre in the Agriculture Land Reserve and bought 150 chicks.
But what seemed like a simple plan — raising a small flock of chickens for meat and eggs — became complicated last week with the appearance of a City of Vancouver bylaw officer who told her she’d run afoul of the city’s backyard chicken bylaw, which prohibits people from keeping more than four hens.
“We wanted to farm and farmland seemed like the right place to do it,” said Friesen. “I didn’t take (the bylaw officer) seriously. This is ALR land. I told him to go back and read the laws.”
But what Friesen and her partner Jordan Maynard didn’t know was that although their little piece of top-quality farmland in Vancouver’s Southlands neighbourhood is technically in the ALR, it is also subject to a condition that affects no other farmland in B.C.
According to the both the City of Vancouver and the Agricultural Land Commission, the ALR land in Southlands is governed by city bylaws on such things as noise, smell and the number of chickens a farmer can keep, rather than the provincial Right to Farm Act that normally governs ALR land. The provincial legislation allows farmers to keep livestock and tend crops that might irritate neighbours in an urban setting.
The order affecting Southlands was written in 1989, explained commission executive director Kim Grout, who was not aware of it until contacted about Friesen’s case.
The order seems to recognize the uniqueness of Southlands, which the City of Vancouver website describes as an “urban country neighbourhood.” These days, upscale mansions and equestrian facilities dominate the area along the north shore of the Fraser River, but decades ago it was dotted with nurseries, greenhouses, orchards and stables.
Grout said she thought perhaps the order was put in place as an alternative to excluding the neighbourhood from the ALR all together.
“Vancouver is within their right to enforce bylaws there,” she said.
A spokesman for the City of Vancouver confirmed the city could “commence a prosecution for breaches of the Animal Control bylaw, including rules about chickens and hens, without any concern for the Right to Farm Act.”
Friesen believes that needs to change — and she’s hoping to find a way to fight the bylaw. The farmer and her partner decided to lease the land in an effort to preserve it and be part of the local food movement at a time when the city has pledged to become a “global leader in urban food systems.”
But one complaint from an anonymous neighbour who alerted the bylaw officer to a noisy rooster means she has until April 12 to get rid of all but four of her 150 chickens.
“ALR land is so precious,” said Friesen. “This is some of the best soil in Canada ... (but) we can’t farm it if the city is prosecuting us for farming.”