A committee of the Aurora City Council has been discussing the possibility of lifting the city’s ban on backyard chickens.
While no official ordinance has been drafted, aldermen who sit on the Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee have spent time at the past two meetings discussing the possibility of allowing backyard chickens within city limits and the logistics of how that may work. No decision has been made yet, but aldermen seem to agree that, if the ban is lifted, there would still be restrictions against roosters, along with other requirements.
Currently, the city’s ordinance bans people from keeping dangerous animals, bees or farm animals within city limits. However, special permission can be given to things like pony rides and petting zoos.
According to Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward, a similar discussion to potentially lift the ban on backyard chickens was held roughly a decade ago, but it never went further than a discussion. As the current chair of the Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee, he brought the discussion back up at the Aug. 4 meeting, where he said some residents had been asking him about it.
People may want to keep backyard chickens for educational reasons, to be more sustainable or simply because of the price of eggs, among other reasons, Bugg said on Aug. 4.
Aurora resident Austin FitzCorbett, speaking at Tuesday’s meeting during the public comment period, said backyard chickens can provide eggs to help local families who face food scarcity, can help clean up residential food waste and can help the city become more self-sufficient and environmentally conscious. Other communities in the counties Aurora is located within already allow backyard chickens, including Naperville, he said.
Across the two meetings, Bugg also pointed out various potential issues with lifting the ban, for example that chickens may attract predators and mice or that people may have moved within city limits expecting to not have to deal with their neighbors keeping chickens.
Ald. Shweta Baid, 10th Ward, raised a number of questions about the proposal, including whether or not slaughtering would be allowed. Bugg said that, if the ban is to be lifted, he would not be in favor of allowing the slaughter of chickens for processing within the city. The chickens would be intended for eggs and education, he said.
If the ban is eventually lifted city-wide, individual homeowners associations would still be able to prohibit its residents from keeping backyard chickens, according to Assistant Corporation Counsel Patrick Collins. However, he said homeowners associations cannot allow them if the city keeps the ban in place.
Ald. Javier Banuelos, 7th Ward, said at the Aug. 4 meeting that he did not have a problem with lifting the city’s ban on backyard chickens as long as roosters are not allowed, coops are required and properties are kept properly maintained.
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At the most recent Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee meeting on Tuesday, Aurora Animal Control Manager Kameron DeBoer told aldermen that her division responds to many calls about backyard chickens, typically because of roosters, escaping chickens or smell. Not many people know that they aren’t allowed to keep chickens within city limits, but when warned people often rehome the chickens quickly, she said.
Since the city’s Animal Control Division doesn’t really have a place to keep chickens, officers typically give residents a week to find the chickens a new home, DeBoer said. However, if officers check back in and see the chickens are still there, the animals are impounded and their owners are ticketed, she said.
Neighbors are unlikely to notice a well-maintained coop, according to DeBoer. But, if not properly kept-up, chicken enclosures can start to smell and attract predators, she said, and animal control has noticed more coyote sightings near where there are frequent calls about backyard chickens.
The city had 33 calls about backyard chickens last year, and this year that number was already at 43 by the start of August, according to Bugg. That uptick is likely due to more people getting chickens, which could be related to rising grocery prices, DeBoer said.
Ald. Daniel Barreiro, 1st Ward, during the Aug. 4 meeting questioned animal control’s ability to handle more work that could be made by lifting the backyard chicken ban, noting many ongoing problems within his ward that he said animal control still needs to address.
At Tuesday’s meeting and in an email to The Beacon-News, FitzCorbett said he believes ordinances in place should be enforced fairly. He knows many people on the West Side of Aurora who have chickens in their back yard either because they don’t know about the city’s ban or believe the city won’t do anything about it, he said.
“I would just ask that we as a city consider fairly enforcing ordinances, especially backyard chickens,” he said on Tuesday. “We either allow them or we don’t, and I think that should be a fair expectation to our community members.”
The committee’s discussion of backyard chickens is expected to be continued at future meetings.