Hens Are Legal

After fending off two attempts to prevent the passage of new urban poultry legislation, Roland Lemar was heralded as a ​“Chicken Champion.”

Lemar (pictured), an East Rock alderman, played a key role in a spirited debate in City Hall Tuesday night, as the Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance allowing city residents to keep hens in their backyards.

Leading the opposition to the ordinance was East Shore Alderwoman Arlene DePino, who made two separate proposals trying to block or modify the new law. Both motions led to lengthy debates in which East Rock’s Lemar emerged as the main defender of the legislation.

The bill ultimately passed, creating a new law that allows residents to keep up to six hens — not roosters — in their backyards.

The ordinance includes requirements and restrictions covering the size of chicken coops, their placement, and their distance from residences and property lines.

The law has been in the works for several months, having made its way through the City Plan Commission and two public hearings by the Legislation Committee, which Lemar chairs. This lengthy process resulted in a well-written and comprehensive piece of legislation, argued Alderman Lemar as he stood to speak for the bill.

Alderwoman DePino disagreed. ​“I don’t think it is our best work,” she said. She made a motion that the legislation be sent back to committee for revision.

Instead of an ordinance allowing hen-keeping for all, DePino suggested that residents seeking to raise poultry should have a streamlined process for seeking permission from the Board of Zoning Appeals. This would allow neighbors to speak out every time someone wanted to raise chickens, DePino said.

“The ordinance robs neighborhoods of their voice,” DePino said. The legislation would allow people to go out and buy hens even if they have existing Livable Cities Initiative violations, she added.

“We have constructed an ordinance that is one of the most strict ordinances that you’ll ever see,” said Lemar, who represents East Rock. ​“This ordinance does not make it easier for anyone to … neglect their property.”

“I take offense at the idea that this is not our best work,” he said.

“Given the time and energy put into it, it deserves a fair up or down vote,” Fair Haven Heights Alderman Alex Rhodeen said, speaking out against DePino’s motion.

DePino continued to raise objections. She said that she had calculated that if hen-keeping caught on, a four-block area in her ward could become home to as many as 260 chickens. This would be very problematic, she said, given the ​“dozens and dozens of coyotes“ living in the woods near Tweed Airport.

DePino also mentioned that chicken coops would be a noisy nuisance for people who work at night and would have to ​“listen to cackling all day” when they’re trying to sleep.

“Right now hens are being raised illegally,” Lemar said. ​“This makes it more difficult to do that.”

“We invested a lot of effort into this,” he went on. ​“This deserves a vote this evening.”

When DePino’s motion to table the ordinance was put to a vote, only 11 aldermen voted for it, and it failed to carry.

So DePino tried a different tactic. She introduced an amendment that would change the wording of the ordinance to increase the minimum distance separating chicken coops and human residences, from 15 feet to 30 feet.

Rising again to defend the bill, Lemar said that the ordinance’s original numbers had been approved by experts and repeated that the ordinance was very strictly worded. ​“Any further restrictions” he said, would prevent ​“large swaths” of residents from having hens. Their yards would simply be too small to locate a coop far enough away from any residence.

Fair Haven Alderwoman Erin Sturgis-Pascale agreed. ​“This amendment would effectively eliminate many of the houses in my ward that would like to have chickens,” she said.

In a vote of 18 to nine, DePino’s amendment was rejected.

As the lengthy discussion drew to a close, some aldermen burst out clucking noises when the motion to vote on the ordinance was finally made. The bill passed with only eight aldermen voting against it.

Rosemary Morgan, who keeps chickens on Bishop Street in East Rock, immediately rushed to Lemar’s side and tried to present him with a half-dozen fresh eggs. The little egg crate had a hand-lettered sign praising Lemar as a ​“Chicken Champion.”

Lemar turned down the gift however, apparently unwilling to accept eggs in exchange for legislation.

“I suppose it looks like bribery,” said Morgan (pictured).

After the meeting, DePino said that she does not oppose people raising hens in the city. She said that she was simply trying to make sure that residents had a say in their neighbors’ decisions to keep hens. If people are not taking care of their property already, their neighbors should be able to say that they should not be allowed to add poultry to the mix, DePino argued

On her way out of the chamber, Downtown Alderwoman Bitsie Clark said that the chicken debate had made for one of the best Board of Aldermen meetings in years.