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Legalize chickens?

With Tupper Lake village board split over the question, public hearing to be held on allowing egg-laying hens

(Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

TUPPER LAKE — The village board is considering the possibility of legalizing egg-laying hens and will hold a public hearing on the subject soon.

The topic was brought up by Code Enforcement Officer Peter Edwards at the board’s Wednesday meeting, after Trustee Ron LaScala approached him with the suggestion. After a discussion in which the board members shared their thoughts on whether the village should allow chicken-rearing, the board voted 3-2 to discuss it in an upcoming public hearing. The date for this hearing has not yet been set.

LaScala make the motion to set a hearing.

“I do think that people should be allowed to have hens in their yard if they are in a coop,” LaScala said. “I think the village taxpayers pay a good amount of taxes; they should at least be able to have some chickens.”

LaScala keeps two chickens in his backyard already.

While the Tupper Lake village board is brooding over the idea of allowing residents to have hens, they are not expected to allow roosters, like this one. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

Trustee David “Haji” Maroun seconded the motion, saying he approved of a hearing. This was one of his last actions as a trustee, as Wednesday was his last meeting.

“I’m not opposed to it,” he said. “But it would have to be regulated.”

He pointed out that chicken owning is already semi-prevalent, despite the current law.

“They’re here anyways,” he said. “There’s probably 25 people in the village anyway that have them now. That’s a fact. I’ve seen it.”

Trustee Clint Hollingsworth provided the third approval necessary for the board to approve the meeting.

“If somebody wants to have four hens or six hens in their backyard in a coop, I don’t see any problem with that, but I’m just one of five (board members),” Hollingsworth said.

Trustee Leon LeBlanc opposed the motion. He said he opposes having farm animals in the village.

“We’re building this whole village for tourism. We’re building this whole village for beautification. I think we are going in the right direction, the ways laws are set right now,” LeBlanc said. “As far as I’m concerned, if you want to have a farm, go into the town.”

Mayor Paul Maroun also voted no, saying he is not confident people would take care of their chickens and keep them from being a nuisance.

“I really don’t think we should have farm animals in the village,” he said. “I know, Ron, you do a good job at keeping yours up.”

Edwards said he has no say in the matter and that the final decision is up to the board. He did voice his opinion that chickens can be quiet and unnoticeable, and said that some village residents have indicated to him they would like to own small amounts of egg-laying hens.

He said farm animals are currently outlawed in the local joint zoning rules the village has with the town of Tupper Lake, though they are legal in the town. The two municipalities are in the process of drafting new zoning regulations, which Edwards said would have language allowing egg-laying hens back in village. However, he pointed out these new regulations are still a long way from being passed.

Haji Maroun’s successor on the board, Jason McClain, said when he heard LaScala was going to bring the topic up at the board, he started researching what other villages have done, why Tupper Lake prohibited chickens in the first place and what sort of regulations are helpful for maintaining chicken order. He supports legalizing chickens if that is what the majority of village residents want, saying he wants to hear what people have to say at the public hearing.

Rules for the roost

The three trustees who spoke in favor of legalizing chickens said they would want to do so with a list of regulations to allow the board to handle problematic situations.

“I just support allowing egg-laying hens,” Hollingsworth said. “I think the big part of this is getting the regulations on it.”

LaScala and Hollingsworth both said they want to cap the number of chickens that can be owned on a single property, both saying they would not want people running “chicken farms” in the village.

Edwards said the possible rules in the new zoning law would include a calculation for the number of chickens allowed per square foot. He said if a property is very close to a neighbor’s house, then that number would go down.

Edwards said town residents have to go to the planning board for a special-use permit to own chickens. He asked if the board would do this to have the planning board oversee chicken owning or if the village board would oversee it.

LaScala said he does not want to “drag another government agency” into it.

“Asking the people of the village to go to a joint planning board to ask for permission to have an animal that we would already have regulated into a law … seems archaic and not necessary,” LaScala said. “Are we going to start regulating the community so much we have to go to the planning board for how many dogs we have? For how many cats we have?”

Haji Maroun said he believes there is already regulation on owning dogs.

“Dogs needing licenses is the same as going to a planning board anyway; that’s my opinion,” he said.

LaScala said he does not believe it is the same. In either case, he said he does not think the village should get involved unless chickens become a problem, and then they can regulate ownership. He said with the right rules in place, the village court, code department and police could regulate improper keeping of chickens to avoid them being a nuisance or being neglected.

Farm animals or pets?

LaScala said he would want chickens to be treated like any other small animal people own, like pets.

“Every now and then you get one or two people who just don’t care, and they let their chickens run all over or they let their dog run all over or they don’t take care of their animals,” LaScala said. “You’re going to have that. People don’t take care of their dogs; people don’t take care of their cats; people don’t take care of their kids. You know, it’s society.”

Hollingsworth said chickens are sources of food and don’t make much noise compared with other animals people can own.

“I know that there’s people in this community that have a number of dogs that make a lot of noise and disturbance in the neighborhood, and chickens don’t do that,” Hollingsworth said. “I don’t think they’d be much of a nuisance.”

Edwards said regulations on legalized chickens would include rules barring the owning of roosters, as they are louder gender than hens.

LeBlanc said previous boards were wise to put the current restrictions in place, citing issues the village has had with farm animals in the past.

“We had a problem,” LeBlanc said. “And when I say we had a problem, it wasn’t just with chickens. It was with different animal types, and if this is going to happen, we’re going to go back to the same old position we were in.”

Paul Maroun also talked about this, saying he grew up next to a neighbor who kept chickens and horses.

LaScala said he disagreed.

“When Leon talks about farm animals, what we had here before, yeah, there were horses in the village,” LaScala said. “I got a great story to tell you one day about me and a horse walking down Park Street.

“That was a problem. We’ve moved on from that.”

Haji Maroun’s only concern was that more chicken ownership might bring more predators seeking food into the village. He will not be on the board for this decision but offered his thoughts on it.

“If the village people want it, what can we say?” he said.

Paul Maroun laid out the path this issue will take now that it is being discussed.

“If we want to pursue this matter … we would have to bring this local law back up, we would have to pass a resolution disavowing the local law, but at the same time we’d have to hold a hearing on this,” he said.

He said a date for the public hearing will be set this week.

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