Cock-a-doodle-don’t: Judge rules on row over roosters’ racket
A fight over noisy chooks led a council to record one feathered offender producing 40 early morning crows in a 10-minute period. Hamish McNeilly reports on neighbours at war over rural life.
TOM Bliss bought his house largely because of the views over Dunedin, but those views – and his sleep – would soon be threatened by fast-growing gums he claims are strategically planted by his neighbour.
He had previously complained about gorse spreading from her property into his garden, but that wasn’t to be all.
Then came the roosters. A years-long legal wrangle over her roosters has culminated in a small victory for tired Dalrymple St residents, who had been subjected to early morning crowing since at least 2016.
At its peak, up to seven freerange roosters roamed Lyann Heke’s property, waking up neighbours including Bliss, who began documenting the crowing. Bliss, who moved to the area around the same time as Heke, first complained about the roosters to Dunedin City Council in 2016, ‘‘when I could tolerate it no longer after enduring ongoing interrupted sleep’’.
His complaints led to an investigation by the council, which included recording one rooster crowing 3.15am, while another crowed 40 times in a 10-minute period, from 5am.
‘‘You just don’t get any sleep, they are as loud as hell,’’ Bliss said. Any disturbance at night, such as a vehicle or a full moon, could ‘‘set these roosters off’’.
The council issued Heke with a noise abatement notice on
January 6, 2020. The Resource Management Act requires landowners to ensure noise from their land did not exceed a reasonable level.
That notice asked Heke, who lives on a rural-zoned, 1.6-hectare property, to take reasonable steps to reduce the noise from her roosters, including moving and housing them at a far corner of the property. It said further mitigation could include housing all the roosters on her property between 9pm and 7am, and blacking out the coop/enclosure entirely.
Heke was given until January 31, last year, to comply, but she later requested an extension. Ultimately, her failure to act led the council to take her to court for ignoring the notice.
‘‘I was just fighting for my right to keep roosters,’’ Heke said when visited at her property on Friday. ‘‘It’s all over roosters . . . but it’s not really all over roosters.’’
Heke agreed gorse near the neighbours’ boundaries was the initial source of complaints against her. She planted gum trees for privacy once the gorse was cut back, she said. She had heard neighbours discussing what she was doing on her property, she said.
‘‘Look at what I’ve got in my face,’’ she said, pointing at the houses behind her section. ‘‘I have a whole street pointing at me. I just try to block them out.’’
Heke carried out free-range poultry farming on her property, which she bought in 2002. Contrary to her neighbours’ beliefs that the roosters were deliberately used to annoy them, Heke said she actually bred them for meat, and used the feathers for weaving, to make traditional korowai (Ma¯ ori cloaks).
She gifted chicken eggs to friends and family. When the young roosters started to crow around spring – about the time people complained – ‘‘I would pop them off and put them in my freezer’’.
The crowing of roosters did not bother her at all. It was one of the reasons she bought a rural-zoned property. ‘‘I love it.’’
When neighbours complained about her roosters, she headed to court to ‘‘stand-up for myself’’.
‘‘I don’t like to be bullied. I said I would go to court, because I’m fighting for my right to have a rooster.’’
The matter landed in the Dunedin District Court last month, where Environment Court Judge Brian Dwyer found her guilty of ignoring the abatement notice.
His judgment said the property appeared to have no coop, with roosters able to run free, and referred to council environmental health officer Tanya Morrison’s evidence, including the installation of recording and sound measurement equipment at a neighbouring property.
Judge Dwyer found the council had reasonable grounds for issuing the abatement notice, which he noted would have been satisfied if Heke housed the roosters anywhere along the boundary.
Heke argued this was impractical.
The judge noted Heke had failed to move and house the roosters on the southeast boundary of the property as required.
She will be sentenced in
‘It’s all over roosters . . . but it’s not really all over roosters.’ LYANN HEKE
August.
A council spokeswoman said the council would not be making any comment until after sentencing. ‘‘The rooster remains on the property.’’
Heke disputed that, and said she hadn’t had a rooster on the property since before the court case – just a dozen hens and a few sheep.
Judge Dwyer’s judgment noted the abatement notice did not require Heke to stop having roosters on her property, but rather, to adopt the best practicable option to ensure that their noise ‘‘did not exceed a reasonable level’’.
‘‘That is the one point that I won,’’ Heke said. ‘‘And that was worth it all. They can’t stop me having roosters.’’