North Huntingdon backyard chicken debate pecks on

A North Huntingdon man who has hens and a rooster in his backyard pleaded with township officials Thursday to revise a proposed ordinance that would limit the number of people who may want to raise chickens in a neighborhood.

“Try not to be so one-sided,” Bradley Clark of Crestwood Drive told the commissioners.

Clark wanted the commissioners to consider scrapping a proposed ordinance that would require residents to have at least 1 acre of property in order to raise chickens in a neighborhood and allow a chicken expert to weigh in on drafting regulations for raising chickens.

Clark questioned the need for an ordinance setting rules for raising chickens in a residential neighborhood when the township has granted conditional use permits for backyard chickens to only two property owners who live in an area classified as a residential zone.

“It boils down to the owner and not the chickens. Do we have a chicken problem or a caring problem?” said Clark, who was denied a permit in February to raise chickens in his backyard on a 4-3 vote by the commissioners.

Clark offered to assist in revising the proposed ordinance, which the commissioners are scheduled to vote on adopting at the board’s Wednesday meeting.

The proposed ordinance would permit a homeowner to raise six chickens in their backyard in a residential area and prohibits keeping roosters. The proposed ordinance retains the requirements for the setback distance from the property line and from a neighboring house that were part of a previous ordinance, as well as requirements for the construction of a chicken coop. The chickens are not permitted to have free range of the owner’s property.

The proposed rules would prohibit the township from granting homeowners in a residential neighborhood a conditional use permit to keep chickens at their home, unless they have 1 acre of land, which is equal to 43,560 square feet. Township officials have said that only about 13% of property owners have that much land. The previous ordinance that was repealed in May permitted the township to allow chickens on properties with minimum lot sizes ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 square feet.

Ryan Fonzi, township planning director, said the previous ordinance on chicken-keeping in a residential neighborhood was difficult to enforce because of the subjective nature of some complaints regarding the odor from the chickens and the noise they made that some neighbors found objectionable.

Clark said his rooster is not as loud as some dogs in the neighborhood or the noise from children playing.

Clark filed a notice with the Westmoreland County Court in February that he was challenging the commissioners’ rejection of his request for a permit to keep the chickens and rooster he has been raising since October.