| First off, my request to the city explicitly excluded roosters. Second of all, compare chickens to a number of other pets. They require very little space, don't poop all that much, and they are relatively quiet. And all pets come with some downsides, but we allow them. Dogs bark and some dogs bite. They poop a lot. They can get rabies. A resident might not clean up after his or her dog or respect leash laws. A dog might harbor fleas or other pests. Yet dogs are legal and no one would ever think of making them illegal because dog owners love their dogs.
Compared to a dog, chickens are nothing! As for the paper's concerns about a neighboring dog eating a chicken (a cat won't eat a full-grown chicken), it's the responsibility of the chicken owner to see to it that their chickens are protected from predators. As for fights between neighbors - those can happen now, without chickens. In addition to battles over where property lines are drawn or tree branches that hang over a neighbor's hard, neighbors may already bicker over loud dog barking. My next door neighbor here has a dog that is quite loud and I know my choices are to put up with it or approach the neighbor about it. I just deal with it. How would anything change if we had chickens here?
How about the idea that this is the city, not the country, so we need to keep country things out. Well, it's also the city, not the tropics or the rainforest, so should we ban parrots and iguanas, too? On a more serious note, this is an idea that truly needs to go away. As the talks in Copenhagen wrap up, I think we are all aware now more than ever that oil is in short supply and greenhouse gas emissions (many of which come from agriculture) are endangering our very existence on this planet. If we are going to survive - and I mean that literally - some of our ideas about cities and suburbs such as green lawns and chickens are going to have to change. (Plus, of course, New York City allows chickens, and no one can argue that New York is in the country.)
The La Mesa city government was actually quite receptive to the chicken idea, they just wanted to wait until a more appropriate time to discuss it. In 2010, they will begin working on a revision to the city's general plan and they hope to review sustainability and food production (including chickens) more broadly. Following that, then they plan to look into the zoning ordinance to allow chickens that I requested. I'm glad La Mesa's city government is more forward thinking than the Union Tribune's editorial board, since the Union Tribune won't ultimately get to make the decision.
Previous installments of The Chicken Project:
Part 1: Initial Planning for Chickens
Part 2: Oops, it's not legal
Part 3: My public comment at City Council
Part 4: My letter to the city
Part 5: Bad News
Part 6: City Council Tables the Issue
Part 7: We Made the Local Paper! |
