Chickens now have the run of Laconia

LACONIA — A six month interrogation of “the chicken question” found its resolution from city council Monday night, with city residents in any residential zone now able to raise the domesticated birds, if their property meets certain conditions.

Ward 3 Councilor Eric Hoffman brought the topic to the council at a meeting in March, asking his colleagues to consider allowing residents to raise a limited number of chickens. His request was forwarded to a council subcommittee, eventually coming up before the planning board in May.

The ordinance change hit a slight speed bump in July, when during a council meeting, the question was tabled to allow the planning department time to consider creating some sort of licensing mechanism to ensure effective enforcement. 

No such license was created, because there isn’t a legal mechanism available to the council to do so, but enforcement action is possible through the zoning ordinance itself. Individuals in violation of the rules on chickens could be subject to fines of up to $275 per day, imposed through Belknap County Superior Court.

Now, if individuals wanted to keep and raise chickens in the areas of the city where it’s not permitted — the industrial park, industrial and airport industrial zones — they’d have to seek a variance at the zoning board. In the other nine zoning districts, keeping chickens is a permitted use and does not require a variance. 

“Right now, people, if they want to have chickens in the areas where they’re not permitted in the zones, they still have to seek a variance from the Zoning Board of Adjustment to have the chickens,” Assistant Planning Director Tyler Carmichael told councilors. “The zoning board has routinely denied those variances.” 

The new ordinance, in essence, creates performance criteria for people to keep chickens, Planning Director Rob Mora said. Instead of going to the zoning board and asking for a variance for chickens with no regulations whatsoever, the new ordinance sets minimum criteria.

“At least we’ve outlined the criteria of what should be used and what’s going to safeguard the residents, to the maximum extent possible,” Mora said.

Performance standards outlined in the ordinance, which a property owner must satisfy to raise chickens, include: having a minimum lot size of 0.4-acre; keeping less than six chickens; only female chickens; doing so only on single-family lots; not engaging in breeding, onsite slaughtering or any commercial activity; and securing chickens in a coop during non-daylight hours, among other provisions. 

“I’m in support of this, because a lot of other cities and towns around the state allow this, I think more cities allow it than don’t,” Hoffman said. “I’ve looked into this, and I could not really find any issues arising from this being passed in other cities. I don’t have proof of this, but I suspect when someone takes on the not only financial cost, but the time investment to raise chickens in their backyard, I think people tend to actually do a pretty good job of it.” 

The vote was not unanimous — Councilors Mark Haynes of Ward 4 and Steven Bogert of Ward 5 dissented, and a member of the public expressed several concerns during a period open to public comment.

“The problem I’ve had right along — and I voted ‘no’ out of committee — is enforcement,” Haynes said. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to know where these animals are kept, until the neighbor complains.”

Marcia Hayward of Laconia, who is also a member of the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment, wondered how councilors would ensure lot sizes could accommodate a flock of chickens and that they’d be raised humanely, among other concerns. 

“Space — a Google search revealed that for a family of four to have a consistent supply of eggs, they have to have eight to 10 chickens, and it's recommended that they actually have more than that. Each chicken needs 4 square feet of coop space, and 10 square feet of run space,” Hayward said. “As a member of the zoning board, I recall visiting Pearl Street and Court Street, because they had requested variances to have chickens. The lot sizes were 0.2 and 0.25 acres, respectively, and when one removes the square footage of all of the buildings, [there] was not much room left for chickens.”

Hoffman said a number of Hayward’s concerns — like lot size, the maximum number of birds, how much space each chicken needs and how food and waste is handled — are sufficiently dealt with in the ordinance.

“When we crafted this ordinance, we wanted to be sure we were being fair to the neighbors of those who wanted to have chickens. That’s why we looked at lot size, we looked at setbacks, we looked at where on the property you could actually have the coops and the runs. We do discuss waste management, the removal of waste,” Carmichael said.

“A lot of the concerns [Hayward] had addressed, we have already taken care of in the ordinance to ensure that we had those performance standards, so it wasn’t a free-for-all,” Carmichael said. “If there are any issues, just like anything else in the zoning ordinance, the planning department is able to take enforcement action on that.”