Chicken Meeting

The city council will revisit whether or not to allow chickens to be kept in people's backyards. This has been a contentious issue for the council, with a large group of folks showing up at the meetings pushing for a more chicken friendly ordinance. The current laws do not allow for any chickens on properties zoned residential. The possible changes would allow for a few hens and lots of restrictions. The city council passed the issue off to the planning commission earlier in the year only to have them recommend not changing the ordinance.

Recommended Action: The Planning Commission recommends that the City Council not adopt an ordinance to amend the SRC modifying the definition of "livestock" to exclude the keeping of chickens from being considered as keeping livestock, except when kept for commercial purposes.

To read the entire recommendation click here.

The council will hear public comment around 6:30p tonight in their chambers at city hall. Going by past meetings on the issue, it looks like a majority of the council is in favor of allowing the chickens. The disagreement has mostly been about how to allow it to happen.

We're not the only city having this debate, check out what's happening in Gresham.

Oh yeah, if you haven't seen it yet check out this pro chicken video put out by the salemchickens.com folks.