Residents in Springville get more fired up about backyard chickens than with tax proposals or new fees.
“We got more emails on this than I have in six years in relation to raising any utility fees or property taxes combined,” Mayor Matt Packard said. “I hope you feel that you have been heard.”
Packard joked that he has “a bit of a bias against chickens” due to past experiences with neighbors’ chickens getting loose and ending up on his property. But he appreciated just how many residents reached out to the city to give their opinions about chicken regulations.
The council first started looking into the chicken issue when a resident family, who was being cited for having too many chickens in their yard, came to the council seeking clarification on the city code. The city’s chicken ordinance says residential households can have a maximum of six chickens. But one sentence in the ordinance that suggests different guidelines for lots larger than 20,000 square feet has caused some discrepancy in residents’ application of the ordinance.
Three weeks ago, the council debated how to clarify the ordinance so citizens could more easily understand how many chickens were allowed. At that meeting, several residents voiced approval for additional chickens being allowed on larger lots.
On March 2, the City Council passed an adjusted ordinance creating a tiered system for backyard chickens based on lot size.
Initially, the proposal would have restricted twin homes and duplexes from having any chickens at all, and initially included a restriction limiting chicken owners from selling eggs.
Several Springville chicken owners spoke during the meeting’s public comment that the number of chickens should be more than 12 and Springville shouldn’t be over-regulating people’s decisions.
Karen Anderson shared that, as a kindergarten teacher for 25 years, she raised chicks with her students every year and hoped one day she could keep some chickens herself. When she moved to Springville, she got a coop ready and bought 12 chickens, as she believed, according to the ordinance, that she could have that many.
“When I first heard that maybe that would change and it would be six chickens, it filled my heart with great sorrow because we name our chickens, like we know them,” she said.
She said she enjoys spending time with her grandchildren as they tend to their garden and chicken coop together. Her little flock of birds feed three families and she believes the government doesn’t need to get involved with restricting that.
“As a community, we ought to be encouraging people to keep chickens. ... We need to make the process easier and not more difficult. We need to make sure we tread as lightly, as governing people, as possible on people’s individual lives.”
Michael Andersen said as a new father, he has been thinking “heavily about the future” due to recent events such as grocery spikes after the COVID-19 pandemic and global conflicts like the recent attacks on Iran.
“I worry a lot about the future that this one is going to face here,” he said while holding his infant son. “I implore you as an earlier citizen did, that the government which governs least governs best.”
He encouraged the council to try again with the proposed ordinance, saying there were many “errors” in it.
Other residents voiced ideas of allowing any small fowl, not only chickens, and taking out the selling restriction so extra eggs can be sold to neighbors. Benefits of backyard chickens were shared as well, such as reducing landfill waste through them eating food scraps, teaching kids where their food comes from, and promoting family togetherness through caring for the creatures.
The council decided that if a twin home or duplex meets all of the setback guidelines in the ordinance to ensure there is enough space and no nuisance to neighbors, then there is no reason not to allow them to also have chickens.
“If we want to create more gentle density throughout the city, we want people to be able to live in places like duplexes and twin homes that don’t dramatically change the character of neighborhoods. But they should still get to live the same equality of life that somebody in a single-family detached house does,” Councilman Logan Millsap said.
As for selling eggs, that portion of the ordinance was included when it first passed in 2014 to ensure that no chicken owners got “out of control,” the council explained in its discussion. But with a restriction on the number of chickens, the council decided there’s no need to include it as owners would only sometimes have extra eggs and should be allowed to sell them to neighbors.
In the end, the council passed an updated ordinance that took out the restrictions on twin homes and duplexes and removed the selling limitation. The tiered system states residential lots under 12,000 square feet can have a maximum of six chickens; lots between 12,000 and 16,000 square feet can have a maximum of 10 chickens; and lots larger than 16,000 square feet can have up to 16 chickens.