The third hearing on a possible chicken ordinance was held before members of the Wayland City Council members, this one outlining potential ordinances. City officials soon may be asked to adopt a local law that would permit, but also regulate keeping chickens.
Zack Williams, representing the Michigan State Cooperative Extension Service at Michigan State University, suggested the following rules for a local ordinance:
• Limit the raising of chickens to single or two-famly residences only and the number of chickens to four to six per site.
• No roosters (male adult chickens) may be kept.
• Poultry should not be allowed in a residence, porch or attached garage. Chickens must be confined in a house or coop in the backyard of the residence with a minimum of one square foot per bird (144 square inches). An outside, enclosed run may or may not be allowed. The run should be no larger than eight feet by eight feet, and it should be attached to the coop. The facilities should be built to keep dogs, cats and wildlife from gaining entry.
• The poultry facility should be five to ten feet from any property line and at least 10 to 20 feet from a neighboring residence.
• The owner should dispose of waste materials (feed, manure and litter) in an environmentally responsible manner. The materials can be composted or bagged and disposed of in the trash. Piling waste materials on the property is not acceptable.
• Both the process of weeding out inferior animals known as culling and mortality (death) are common occurrences when raising live animals. Poultry owners will need to deal with unwanted males, old hens or sick birds. An animal care program involving euthanasia of birds should be made available. Owners should bag and dispose of dead birds in the trash.
City Manager Josh Eggleston said, “We’ve had three special meetings, we’re heard from people for and against (permitting chickens)… I need some direction from council about which way we want to go.”
Eggleston said it wasn’t a good idea to vote that night.
“You can’t take a vote before you prepare the legislation,” he cautioned.
Mayor Pro Tem Jennifer Antel said she’d prefer the city craft an ordinance modeled on what they heard about last month from the ASK organization in Battle Creek.
“We need to establish fees and fines,” she said. “That will curb a lot of problems that we’ve been hearing about.”
Eggleston said, “Ninety percent of the problems are caused by 10 percent of the people. We have to make sure the majority of citizens don’t have to pay (for infractions and enforcement)… We need enough rules to protect our citizens, but too many would cause an administrative nightmare.”
The city manager recommended a limit on number of permits in the first year be limited to eight.
Eggleston will work on preparing a proposed ordinance for council’s consideration later this fall.
• Adopted two resolutions approving contract agreements with supervisory and non-supervisory personnel. The agreements, which will be good for the next 33 months, will include market-based wage adjustments and no employee will be saddled with a wage decrease.
• Approved the bid from Dave Cole Decorators for $14,500 for paiting the Department of Public Works garage near the corner of South Main Street and 133rd Avenue at the southern edge of the city.
• Saw Mayor Tim Bala officially declare 5:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31, as official traditional trick-or-treating hours for the city.
Why don’t the city DPW workers paint the building? Better known as two men in a truck. ride around all day with no tools in the truck, go down Dahlia Street 10 times a day. Just the gas savings would pay for the paint.