THE LANDMARK VIEW
Anyone who grew up in a city setting can tell you about their experience communing with the land and growing their own food. More often than not, it’s a small plot of land next to the garage where you stick a tomato plant, a couple of cucumbers and maybe some peppers.
The stuff all becomes ripe during July and August and you wind up with 20 tomatoes on the window sill in the kitchen and you begin giving away cucumbers, because, really, who can eat 150 cucumbers?
So the thought of actually raising chickens to provide eggs is such a foreign concept to most city dwellers that it’s a bit mystifying, if not downright terrifying. And anyone who has driven past a commercial poultry farm can’t imagine that the smell doesn’t automatically come with the clucking, scratching beasts.
It’s time for our collective thinking to change.
Look at Scott Sanders and Allison Muscolino’s set-up in Brookfield and you have to conclude that, yes, there is a feasible, responsible way to raise hens – roosters are off the table, by the way – in local backyards. There is no compelling reason we can think of to prevent residents to raise a small number of hens.
The key to the whole thing is responsibility – on the part of both owners of chickens and the village. Because hens are kept outside, more care is going to have to be taken in making sure the coop is clean and that the hens can’t get out and roam the neighborhood.
What will end up happening is that there will be model chicken owners and not-so-model owners. There are model cat and dog owners, and then there are those who let their cats have the run of the neighborhood and don’t pick up after their dogs. Those are also nuisances that need to be reported and controlled.
As far as chickens go, the village should do a couple of things. The board needs to carefully craft an ordinance that allows a small number of hens – say three to four. There should be a permit required to raise hens, giving the village an exact idea of how many and where hens are kept.
The village can be proactive in suggesting layouts for different kinds of properties – there is a wide variety of lot sizes in Brookfield – and even suggestions for the kind of coops, enclosures and ground cover that will provide the best environment for the chickens and reduce potential issues for neighbors.
Regular inspections, which would be a burden on staff, are probably not necessary. Neighbor complaints are the best way to deal with such issues. And if residents are required to get a permit to keep chickens, there should be an adjudication process for having those permits revoked if the problem warrants such an action.
This is an idea whose time has come – or returned, as the case may be. Brookfield has prided itself on its conservation initiatives. Living sustainably and promoting a closer connection between residents and the food they eat is consistent with those efforts.
What will make it succeed is a carefully crafted law, active promotion of best practices by the village and residents being good neighbors.