Guilderland’s zoning law may be silent on whether chickens are allowed in residential areas, but neighbors of one man requesting to raise the birds weren’t.
The Zoning Board of Appeals on Wednesday, March 5, took up its third request since 2011 for a “keeping of chickens application,” with Dale Owen seeking permission to keep chickens outdoors on his property at 140 Mohawk Drive. Board Chairman Peter Barber said the zoning code does not permit or ban the chickens in residential areas. Owen is proposing to keep up to 10 laying hens outside his home, and he said he is flexible as to where the coop would be built.
Unlike prior requests to keep chickens in town, both of which were granted, several neighbors of Owen appeared at the meeting in opposition to his plan.
Barber recused himself from discussions and casting a vote on the application, because he lives near Owen. Board member Thomas Remmert is acting as chairman for the application.
After the meeting, Barber discussed the previous chicken requests before the town.
“One time, half a dozen or more people showed up, and all spoke in favor. In fact, enthusiastically in favor,” Barber said. “The other one, there were petitions signed by dozens and dozens of people. A good number showed up and one person opposed it, but I think they lived a street or two away.”
Owen, who has four children, said his family grows “a substantial amount” of their vegetables and most of his family is vegetarian, so they go through “a ton” of eggs. He said keeping chickens is also an opportunity to teach his children responsibility.
“It is consistent with the residential character of the neighborhood,” Owen said. “There would be minimal disturbance to the adjacent properties … and any remedies for disturbances would be no different than a nuisance dog or a cat that is getting into your garden.”
The chickens would only be in the coop and a run located at the back of his property, which he didn’t believe would be readily visible from the road.
Owen said the noise level of chickens falls around 65 to 70 decibels, but at 20 feet away the noise drops to 50 decibels, which is similar to an air conditioning unit or normal office environment.
A typical dog bark at the source is 60 to 90 decibels, he said.
John Marotta, who lives directly across the street from the Owens, said dogs don’t bark consistently and claimed chickens make noise all day.
“I, for one, am strongly against it,” Marotta said. “The neighbors … have been astir over this. … More people are against this than are for it in the immediate area.”
Marotta said he likes the Owens, but felt if they wanted to keep chickens, they should have lived somewhere more rural. Marotta also said he is planning to sell his home in three months and is worried the chickens could affect the sale.
“If anybody on the panel could sit there and say that if you were selling your home you wouldn’t be concerned with having 10 chickens in the house 50 feet from you for market value and maybe incoming perspective values,” Marotta said. “I interpret that as a negative quality to any potential sale.”
He later added that if Owen were allowed to keep chickens, it could create tensions in the neighborhood.
“Dale has to live with the community he chose to purchase a house in, and the community is not happy,” Marotta said. “He is going to jeopardize relationships in the community.”
Owen said he reached out and met with one neighbor face-to-face about his proposal before coming before the board. Another neighbor he is hoping to meet with soon, because they were out of town.
Opponents at the meeting also worried about what, if any, odor would come from chicken excrement, with 10 hens producing around two-thirds of a pound daily, according to Owen.
“Frankly, I don’t want to live on a smelly property,” Owen said. “I’d be the first one to say, ‘This stinks, I’m going to clean it.’ … I’ve got my compost pile, and we’ve got friends who would drive to my house to clean the poop for me to take it back to their own compost pile.”
Joseph Kane, of 128 Mohawk Drive, in a March 2 email to town officials, said he grew up on a 25-acre farm and claimed chickens are a “high-maintenance” animal and must be constantly cleaned up after.
“Be aware that the smell from a chicken coop is very offensive and that neighbors on either side, on a summer day with a breeze, will be exposed to the odors from the chicken coop,” Kane said in the email.
Teri Conroy, an Altamont resident keeping chickens in an agricultural zone, contended cleaning a chicken coop is a simple process and doesn’t require much effort or time.
Marotta said the odor of chickens would attract more predators to the neighborhood, which could potentially make it more dangerous for people.
Owen said he talked to the town animal control office about what predatory animals are in the town, knowing neighbors were concerned chickens could attract predators, and found out the most prevalent are foxes. He has already seen foxes on his property, too.
“I plan to have a predator-proof coop and use extremely rigid carpenter’s mesh covering all of the opening and any potential entry point,” Owen said.
Codifying chicken coops
The town’s zoning code is in the process of being rewritten through the Zoning Review Committee and a provision slated to be included would allow chickens in residential zoning. There would be standard conditions imposed on residents keeping chickens under the rewritten code, according to Barber. He said the committee is planning to submit proposed changes in around a month or two.
The Town Board would have to approve any changes to the zoning code, with the committee providing recommendations.
“(The committee) has been active for a couple of years, and during that process, there have been a couple of local laws … the zoning review committee has presented to the Town Board,” Barber said. “We pulled some things and advanced them more quickly.”
One local law pushed through already was simplifying the home occupation permit process and allowing business conducted within a residence.
Currently, Barber said, there are “at least some people” keeping chickens without the town’s permission, and there is little the town can do to impose regulations and conduct inspections.
“They are doing it under conditions that may or may not be good, so we felt it would be better to have regulations in place. Those regulations also empower the town to go in and inspect,” Barber said. “Right now, someone could have chickens in their backyard and we don’t know what’s going on, and the town has no legal right to enter the property.”
Fowl feelings
The committee unanimously supported including chickens into the zoning code, but Barber said there are still people opposing the inclusion, including former Town Clerk Rosemary Centi.
Centi, who opposed previous chicken requests, questioned why the board was hearing Owen’s request in an email sent to Barber on Feb. 26.
“I had been assured by Ken [Runion] that this was a nonissue. When it came before the Zoning Code Review Committee, I left them with quite a number of emails opposed to any consideration of chickens in residential zones,” Centi said in the email. “What needs interpreting? We are still in draft mode regarding the new zone code. Please inform the Zoning Board of my personal opposition and other residents’ vehement opposition to this proposal.”
In a letter the town received Feb. 27 from Centi, she cited similar concerns as those attending the recent zoning board meeting and said enforcing regulations would be “very difficult.”
Barber, in a Feb. 28 email reply to a resident, said previous applications for chickens received “positive comments” from the state and county health departments, “as long as well-recognized standards” for keeping chickens are followed.
“More than three dozen NYS municipalities, including NYC, permit the keeping of chickens, but only under enforceable conditions,” Barber said in the email. “And while there has been some opposition to Guilderland taking the same course, far more residents have appeared at public hearings to voice their support.”
An earlier version of this story said Owen had meet with his surrounding neighbors face-to-face before the ZBA meeting. This story has been corrected to reflect Owen had only met with one neighbor before the meeting and plans to meet with another.