Our Farmhouse Blessings

Council: Concord yards no place for chickens to roost
By Karen Cimino Wilson Independent Tribune
Published: September 11, 2009
Concord chickens will have to stay on the farm despite the efforts of a group of residents that organized on Facebook to change a city ordinance, allowing urban residents to keep up to six hens on their property.
Concord City Council voted 3-2 against changing the Concord Development Ordinance to allow the hens. The vote followed a public hearing on the proposal.
Most of the speakers at the public hearing were members of the Concord Chicken Club, a Facebook group that worked to raise the $400 fee required by the city to propose a text amendment to a city ordinance.
In February, resident Tanya ****** submitted a letter to the city requesting a change to the city's development ordinance and code of ordinances that would permit residents to maintain chickens on their property. She presented her request to the Concord Planning and Zoning Commission in May.
The commission expressed concerns about the appearance and structural integrity of the henhouse, permitting enforcement and waste management.
On July 21, the commission ended in a split vote on the change, which meant it went to the city council for a vote.
Tanya ****** said Thursday the proposed change developed out of a local food movement, which favors growing food locally to feed local people and reduce reliance on food sources that must be shipped to the community from all over the country.
Lateef Jackson, a Concord resident who lives on Cabarrus Avenue, spoke in favor of the change.
"If anyone had told me a year and a half ago when I moved in that I'd be speaking about a yard chicken movement, I would have said they're crazy," Jackson said.
But now he wants the option of raising his own chickens in his backyard.
"Decades ago, people in this community used to have gardens and hens in their yard for the same reason we want it now," he said.
The Concord Chicken Club specifically wanted to be allowed to have hens in their yards for the fresh eggs, members said. They had no interest in breeding or slaughtering the chickens.
The proposed ordinance would have prohibited roosters from being kept on the sites where hens were allowed.
Concord resident Aaron Newton said the waste hens produce can be used as fertilizer for gardens, they eat bugs and "best of all, they're a great source of great tasting eggs. Backyard eggs taste far better than commercial eggs."
One person spoke against the amendment, stating it would decrease the quality of life in Concord.
Council member Jim Ramseur said the reason why he voted to deny the change was that he didn't think it was best for the city as a whole.
"This is not just an issue of chickens. The planning and zoning commission gave us a negative recommendation," he said. "It's up to us to say what is best for the 80,000 citizens of Concord."

*I edited this article to take out my last name for our protection*