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STALLINGS Several pet chickens may have to find a new place to roost after the Stallings Town Council affirmed last week that fowl can't live in neighborhoods.
In November, Isaac, Alec and Anthony Walker – ages 10, 9 and 6 – petitioned the town to allow them to keep the pet chickens they received at Easter 2008. Neva Walker, their mother, had learned that keeping chickens violated a town ordinance and had told them they had to either give up the birds or ask the Town Council to change the zoning rules.
The council took up the issue last Monday.
Current town rules require residents to live on lots two acres or larger to keep farm animals. Town planners offered the council the option of an amended ordinance that would allow chickens on lots about a half-acre or larger. But the town staff did not support the change.
A small group of residents, most from Curry Place near the Walker home, attended the meeting to protest “urban chickens.” They said they were worried that any zoning ordinance change would allow chickens in their neighborhood.
“This is a health hazard,” Joyce Hartis, who lives on Curry Way, told the Town Council. “Chickens are disease-carrying animals. If they're in a coop, the smell will be terrible.”
She presented the council with a petition of almost 60 signatures from neighbors opposed to urban chickens. She also said that Stallings has had cockfighting problems in the past and that people could get mites from chickens.
Most towns have rules governing pets and livestock.
Council members voted 5-1 to keep the town's current chicken restrictions. Council member Renee Hartis dissented.
“I was very sympathetic to (these children) having chickens, but I had not thought over all these other aspects,” said council member Barbara Anne Price. “We would be removing protections (town residents) were expecting.”
Neva Walker said last week that her sons have grown quite attached to their hens.
She spoke with Stallings officials afterward, Walker said, and she plans to apply for a more limited zoning variance that would allow her sons to keep the chickens.
“If we have to, we'll fight again,” Walker said.
