CHICKUNZ Went To Visit The Board of Supervisors.

CHICKUNZ went to pay a visit to Henrico's Board of Supervisors last night. We waited over five grueling hours to be heard. You see, last year when I raised the issue for Henrico county to consider more sustainable strategies and allow residents to have laying hens, the response was a resounding, "We will not address this issue, it has been decided."

So here it is, spring again, and I decided to take another tactic: use the public comment period to show that their constituents really do want laying hens and more sustainable rights to produce their own food, responsibly, in residential back yards.

Of course the night in question was one of the most contentious, emotional, and long meetings of the year! Yes it was loooooooooong. And I had a fever. But ultimately I was glad to witness the large participation of citizens, having public discourse with their representatives, and, even when I differ in opinion, give kudos to the Board of Supervisors for all their hard work and deep commitment to their community.

As I mentioned, it was AFTER ELEVEN P.M. when we finally rose to speak.

By then, there were about ten of us. I only knew two of the parties, so please, if you were there, please comment and introduce yourself so we can find you again, and please join FaceBook's CHICKUNZ page to stay connected and aware of next steps locally.

First, I spoke. Fortunately for you I can't remember what I said. I do recall I mentioned that like many of the families there tonight, I too was a mother, there to speak for her family's best interests, that it was critical to feed the mind with good education (many had spoken in favor of new schools), but to not forget it was just as important to feed our bodies with good food, and that in these dire economic times constituents deserve the right to be as sustainable as possible.

I mentioned that they needn't re-invent the wheel: just copy zoning that is in effect in cities and counties throughout the United States- including L.A., Brooklyn, Atlanta, Portland, Seattle, and more!

Next, George Lansing spoke about the awards his family company, Days of Old Herb Farm, won at the Maymont Flower and Garden Show for his Victory Egg Garden which contained, yes, a coop and hens. Thousands of garden enthusiasts saw that award-winning garden, yet most likely none of them could legally have that sustainable, egg-producing garden!

Next, (please forgive me I did not write your names down and if you contact me I will change this accordingly!) a woman spoke about her desire for poultry, that it didn't make sense that zoning requires a coop to be set back from homes 400 feet away (over a football field length!) when a chicken only needs 10 square feet of space.

A gentleman spoke about how, in his public policy class at the University of Richmond, he chose the topic of local food production and was concerned about our community's sustainability, that while studying hunger and disaster preparation, he believed that by allowing residents to be sustaininable they would be preparing their constituents for the coming years of tough economic times and threats to food production globally.

A woman stood up.

"I want to tell you that those predictions of which he just spoke are not in coming years, they are NOW. I have lost my job. My husband has taken a ten percent pay cut to keep his job. We want to eat well. We can not afford organic eggs. Please allow us to feed ourselves by granting us the right to have chickens, to provide ourselves with sustenance."

This woman and all the others in our community in the same situation are why I'm fighting.

It would be easy to surreptitiously have my laying hens. But the larger issue is that our community NEEDS and deserves the right to be sustainable and self-supporting as possible.

Our comment period closed with Mrs. Lansing reminding the board that there have been no avian flu cases transferred from chickens to humans, and that we ask for responsible zoning, not large flocks of messy birds.

Well, we spoke. The Board of Supervisors listened. Now let's make sure they heard.

As Mr. Lansing points out in his email regarding last night:

"I didn't get in until 1am. The Henrico Board of Supervisors heard about five of the dozen people who attended, but we had to wait until 11pm to speak.

I closed by asking them if any of them wanted to lead the other metropolitan areas of central VA by making a motion tonight to amend the zoning laws. The Chairman of the board seemed a little surprised at my assertiveness and said that would be subject to the zoning boards recommendations and no one made a motion. I do believe we have some real support here but I also do not believe anything will happen until enough noise is made by Henrico citizens voicing their concern about changing zoning guidelines.

The time is NOW to get Henrico to make these changes, take this momentum to the other counties and watch free Americans take greater control of their gastrointestinal future! ; )

Here's what we need to do:

• When I or one of you have time, post the names, emails, and phone numbers of all the members of the board.
• Generate grass roots efforts NOW to contact the county supervisor in your area to make these changes.. This can be email, snail mail, phone, or in person. Be polite and give some solid reasons why this would benefit both the county and their citizens.
• If you don't live in the county, try to call someone you know who does, and have them contact their supervisor.

We have a base of activists to help direct this change throughout central VA. The momentum is building, but we need the help of many more. Everyone does not have to attend board meetings into the night, but please do what you can. You would be surprised to realize how few people it takes to make real change. I will try to comment with more detailed info in a couple of days when it is not 1am.

George Lansing"

Copeland's note: The list of Henrico Board of Supervisors and their contact information may be found here: http://www.co.henrico.va.us/supervisors/

Please contact them now, tell them what sustainable urban livestock means to you, how it can help our community, and that their constituents DO support the right to responsible, small scale food production!

 

Letter To The Editor

Dear House Kit People,
Despite the biggest March snowstorm that has kept my children out of school for three days, the weather forecast predicts temperatures in the 70s this weekend! So we plan to camp in the house kit, still without interior walls or systems installed.

Expect many more photographs and inside shots this coming week...
: )
In the meantime, I was excited to see my Letter To The Editor was published in today's Richmond Times - Dispatch!

So, thought I'd share:

Keeping Chickens Would Help The Family Budget
Editor, Times-Dispatch:

I enjoyed the recent article on the sustainable elements in the MAC Events Hme Show / Maymont Garden Show, especially the Victory Egg Garden by Days of Old Herb Farm. However, readers should know that unlike Seattle, Brooklyn, Atlanta and even Los Angeles, Richmond and counties like Henrico do not allow laying hens in our average backyards.

With the Food Bank empty and many families out of work, we should have the right to responsibly have a few laying hens in our gardens to provide our families with fresh eggs, and one or two mini-goats (about 50 pounds) for milk. In Henrico, I can legally have three 200-pound mastiffs in the same back yard, yet I can't have a few hens. I encourage everyone to contact his or her city council or board of supervisors to ask why they are denying constiuents the right to sustainability.

Copeland Casati
Richmond

I am feeling very civic minded today! Hope you enjoyed. : )

 

Urban Chickens, and the Rotten Eggs. ; )

This spring, I aspired to acquire some laying hens to provide my family with fresh, healthy eggs. We have a fenced-in back yard, and it seemed like a great project for the children as well as a big benefit to our family, especially in these times of high food prices and contamination. To my chagrin, it appears the counties and cities in our area are not chicken friendly.

Now, you all know me.
You're all thinking,
"Well, she's a bandit, what does she care?"

I shift my pose to a politician's stance.

"Friends, I fight this fight not for myself, but because I am very aware of all the families that would benefit by this being legal. There are so many recently-arrived immigrants where urban livestock has always been accepted in their countries, or native-born enthusiasts that just want to provide their children with locally raised eggs.
URBAN CHICKENS FOR ALL OF US!"
(clap clap clap clap clap! Thank you. Thank you veddy much.)

I have contacted a local environmental legal group who is interested in the issue, will keep you posted. If you would like more information on urban chickens, there are many great sites on the web including:

• http://www.urbanchickens.org
• http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/simpleliving/chickens.shtml
• http://www.backyardchickens.com

In the meantime, amuse yourself by reading my correspondence with zoning! : )

----- Original Message -----

From: Copeland

To: Pat O'Bannon

Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 9:13 PM

Subject: hens in Henrico?

Hello Mrs. O’Bannon,

I’d like to keep some (3? 4 at most hens, not roosters) chicken in my large, enclosed (6”high privacy fence) back yard. I was under the impression it had to be 400 feet away at which point I was going to apply for a variance and hopefully discuss sustainability and what Brooklyn, Seattle, and Portland are doing in their much larger cities in regards to livestock, and actually how their board of supervisors are encouraging it, but then found this: (See line 648) http://www.co.henrico.va.us/planning/minutes/bza/may04bza.pdf

So, I am reading this to mean I can have 3 chickens?
Also, nowhere can I find on the web site what the actual fines would be if I were to attempt such a transgression… do you happen to know offhand?

P.s. I plan on building a chicken tractor, which is an enclosed coop that you can move, and will just move it daily about the yard so that my garden soil is improved *while* removing the mosquitoes and ticks and weeds, and providing an educational experience and fresh eggs for our children. Curiously, I guess I could roll the chicken tractor around 400 feet at any given time… is there a law against mobile chickens? I am on very good terms with our immediate neighbors, who, like us, are avid gardeners and said they would not mind occasional free eggs. : )

Thanks for your insight!

Sincerely yours,
Copeland Casati

copeland casati
president
www.GreenModernKits.com

From: Blankinship, Benjamin [mailto:bla26@co.henrico.va.us]
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 12:44 PM
To: copeland
Cc: Knight, Mikki; Tuckahoe; Silber, Randy; Emerson, Ralph; O'Kelly, David
Subject: RE: hens in Henrico?

Dear Ms. Casati:

I have been asked to respond to your email on behalf of Ms. O'Bannon.

The zoning ordinance allows "poultry raising," subject to the requirement that "any buildings or yards for the enclosure or feeding of animals or poultry shall observe the distance requirements of section 24-10." (Section 24-11(c)). If you could comply with the distance requirement of 400 feet from the property line, you could keep hens on the property. Since the property measures about 100 feet wide by 150 feet deep, it is impossible to meet the distance requirements.

You mentioned applying for a variance. The Virginia Supreme Court recently ruled that boards of zoning appeals can grant variances only in circumstances where the zoning ordinance prohibits all reasonable use of the property (Cochran v Fairfax County BZA). The Henrico County Board of Zoning Appeals has taken a strict view of its powers since the _Cochran_ decision. I would be very surprised if the BZA granted a variance in these circumstances.

You asked about fines. The amounts of fines are determined by the court. I believe the following guidelines are applicable:

Any such violation shall be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than $10 nor more than $1,000. If the violation is uncorrected at the time of the conviction, the court shall order the violator to abate or remedy the violation in compliance with the zoning ordinance, within a time period established by the court. Failure to remove or abate a zoning violation within the specified time period shall constitute a separate misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of not less than $10 nor more than $1,000, and any such failure during any succeeding 10-day period shall constitute a separate misdemeanor offense for each 10-day period punishable by a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,500. (Code of Virginia § 15.2-2286)

If you need anything else, please let us know.

_________________________

Benjamin W. Blankinship, AICP

Zoning Division Manager

 

It's always the zoning.

Nationally, we have seen the resurgence in the past few years towards education on how to build better, and green, and how to eat better, and green. Following that sentiment, there has been a rise in urban sustainability, and with that, a surge of interest in urban farming.

As a green building business owner, I have become knowledgeable in all sorts of codes and successful standards that other cities and leaders are achieving throughout North America. Ask me who the leaders in greywater are- or rainwater filtration, or what states are not only supporting but offering incentives for their residents to build green...

What I have repeatedly said is this: we have the educated industry, we have the educated consumer. What lags is outdated and non-reconsidered zoning laws and construction loans.

Here I face it again, in the issue of sustainability, locally.

Now I'm no hippie. But I do grow lettuce and spinach attractively in my front yard.

I watch what we eat, I have always had a vegetable garden in an urban environment, and now I would like some eggs without traveling to our friends' farms.

After watching other cities nationally see a reconsideration and support of urban farming, I just have to shake my head when encountering my local government representatives that won't even discuss rethinking their policies towards limited livestock in a sub/urban environment.

I've sat in zoning meetings. Most of the people before the board of supervisors are there to rezone agricultural to "mixed-use." And without too many questions, they stamp their approval readily. But ask them to consider two laying hens within an enclosed yard with a 6" high privacy fence? They won't even bring it to the table for discussion.

Normally I would dismiss them for what I assess them as (Which assessment I will refrain from sharing- I did not immediately come to that conclusion; it came only after much interaction and experience with said officials.); but as someone who volunteers a lot, who is aware of the critical point that those less fortunate are suffering in our area, the low reserves of stock in the local Food Bank, the rising costs of food... I say, "How DARE you?"

How DARE you not support your area in sustainability, in giving local children, your constituents, fresh eggs and milk?

I went to register my child in our local kindergarten last week, and it was clear to me that many of these families, a good percentage immigrants, came from large urban cities where livestock and poultry were successfully raised in urban environments and on whom families depended upon for their own food source, were now here and denied that same self-sufficiency and sustenance. And less fortunate people here have done so, for generations, and depended upon it, but just never cared as to the legality of what they did.

But I do care about whether it's legal, because it's not just a matter of myself, but to assure others they may do so. I certainly don't intend to sneak around with my laying hens.

I'm not asking for roosters, I'm not asking for meat production, hence large quantities of fowl. But allow hens, responsibly; allow two 50 pound mini-goats for milk. In my county you can have three 200 pound mastiffs, and that would be fine. But a chicken? Not possible.

Make it possible.

These officials are denying their citizens a very basic right, and I can not understand how they think it is ok to regulate it down to a ban on poultry. (Oh, disclosure: they say it is ok if you can have the coop 400 feet away from the residence. How big is your back yard? And yet the average chicken run on a farm is ten feet by three-ish feet?)
How big is MY back yard? Plenty large for mastiffs, but too small for a... HEN?

Any neglected and un-picked-up-after animal will cause a stench. Imagine yourself living next to neighbors who did not pick up after their dogs within their own enclosed yards, and there you are on a happy spring morning in your yard, and that's what wafts over to you on the sunny breeze. Is that pleasant, is that right? No, but it's legal.

Can't we instead reconsider responsibility for all animals, and restrict all breeds to a certain, responsible number?

I'm asking for eggs and milk, fresh organic veggies not sprayed by my neighbors' Chemlawn, and the right to bring my own eggs to my table.

It just doesn't feel right that a board of supervisors, so remote from my reality, should have the right to disagree with what my family decides to eat. Good food, raised ourselves, affordably.

For those that would like to learn more:
Here are a bunch of urban farming links and zoning information:

• http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/chickenlaws.html
  
• http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003900621_minigoats25m.html
  
• Seattle's Food System Sustainability and Security Resolution
• Atlanta: http://www.cifalatlanta.org and http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/living/homeandgarden/stories/2008/05/01/hgchickens_0503.html
  
• http://www.wikihow.com/Keep-Chickens-in-a-City
  
• I mean, good grief. You can have chickens in L.A.! http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/05/roosters.html
  
• http://duluthcitychickens.org/DuluthCityChickens_FAQ.html
• http://myurbanchickens.blogspot.com/2008/05/ann-arbor-urban-chickens-are-one-step.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/dining/19yard.html?_r=4&pagewanted=2&ref=dining&oref=slogin
• http://www.cityfarmer.org/deskSmit.html
  
• And so many more, I just need to add them... or just google "urban farming," "sustainability," "mini-goats" or "urban chickens" yourself! : )
  

 

Chicken Tractors

I had a great meeting with the Firestone Una-Clad, etc. (wall & roof) distributors today, more on that later- it is probably obvious to all of you that I am not in the mood to be staid and professional this week... at least, in my blog!

So I will move on to chicken tractors.

My husband is in Europe, and while there, I am running this household 100% the way *I* want to. No more chocolate sandwiches for the children's breakfasts! (He always pleads his childhood with Nutella-actually our children eat very well- hand picked veggies and free range meat. But he does slip them an awful lot o' sugar and blames it on Europe...)

He is the "good guy" in the family, *while* being the voice of reason.

And the voice of reason is gone.

So heck ya.
I'm going to make a chicken tractor to occupy my time and when he returns he might find a whole flock o' chickens in the backyard!

Here are some good links:

• http://www.demesne.info/Garden-Help/Keep-Chickens/Planning-Coops.htm
  
• http://www.plamondon.com/hoop-coop.html
  
• http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/11/weird_eco_habit_1.php