Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 36
| had several constituents call and actually wrote letters in regard to hoping that | would vote against it.
One in particular | believe she did come to the Planning Board meeting and she spoke about having |
guess her property or she had investment property and the people next door have chickens. Her
tenants continuously complained about the clucking and the odor that was coming from there and
basically they began to move out and she was having a hard time renting because of the chickens.
The other person she was concerned about the law enforcement or any enforcement being taking the
staff overseeing the human habitants in the City. So what she was saying was that she felt that staff
was being inundated with the issues that we have with property here so now you are going to say send
them out to deal with the chickens, etc., etc. and she didn’t think that was what would happen for staff
for Code Enforcement or the Police Department or any other person that would go out.
What | did think was reasonable was anywhere from an acre to one acre of property, anything less than
that, | felt as well there was a problem with. | did discuss that with her as well. So if they want entertain
more than a half an acre | would be willing to vote for that, otherwise | would be voting no.
Alderman Klee
| have a question for Alderman Tencza, were you saying that we should make this amendment or
change, | guess | don’t understand where we are going from here?
Alderman Tencza
If | may and | apologize | didn’t know if now was the time to make the amendment or to wait until after
the amended ordinance was adopted.
Attorney Bolton
You can go down to a second level of amending. So you can propose an amendment here which
would then amend the amendment that is before the Board and that can be voted on, but beyond the
second level, one cannot go.
Alderman Tencza
So Madam President if | may just make an amendment to section 190-31.1C2 so that it reads “up to six
adult chickens may be kept on a lot of at least a half-acre in size”.
MOTION BY ALDERMAN TENCZA TO FURTHER AMEND BY ADDING THAT THE LOT MUST BE
AT LEAST A HALF OF ACRE IN SIZE IN SECTION 190-31,(1)(C)(2)
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Lopez
In the Committee was discussed this amendment and it would significantly reduce the number of
available chickens. Again, there is no evidence that suggests that everybody is going to trade their dog
in for a chicken and we are going to have a wave of this. So | still think we are kind of jumping at
shadows and | will not support this amendment | will support the original amendment.
Alderman Klee
And | agree, | don’t think people are going to turn their dogs in for chickens, but | do think it is a way of
going perhaps if this does work we can come back later on and shorten this, but we can’t put the genie
back in the bottle if we go with the smaller lot. Because we have no sunset, we have no provision of re-
entertaining this so I’d rather start large and work our way down to small so | will support the
amendment.
