I spoke at my town's Board of Commissioners meeting because the new Unified Development Ordinance, scheduled to be voted into effect sometime in spring 2025, has written out a 2008 UDO amendment. The amendment is to allow residents to keep ten chickens within town limits without a permit. The new UDO not only reinstates the permit requirement, but also includes a new section that mandates how many chickens a resident can have depending on the acreage of their lot, which was entirely arbitrary with no data to back up the reasoning. My family's property, under that new rule, would mean we would only be allowed to have eight chickens instead of ten, and we would have to pay a yearly fee for the privilege.

My petition to the Commissioners is to rewrite that specific section of the draft UDO to reinclude the people's petition and remove the arbitrary lot restriction. My full speech is below:

"I’m standing before you tonight because I am concerned about several proposed subsections of the new UDO scheduled to be adopted next year.

In July of 2008, a petition was presented to the Town to permit backyard chickens within town limits. On September 16, 2008, the Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of amending Town ordinance to allow ten hens within town limits. This has been in our UDOs since, until now.

In the new UDO draft, Section 3.4.5-E. Backyard Small Animal Keeping; section 1 announces that anyone who wishes to keep Backyard Small Animals, including hens, must file for a zoning compliance permit first. Our current UDO, in Section 3.10.2-B, specifically says that backyard flocks of 10 hens or less are exempt from all permits. Requiring a permit is unnecessary and gives the Town unconstitutional power to decide how many residents can own hens. The Town neither limits nor taxes the number of pet owners under the same parameters.

Moreover, Section 3.4.5-E-2-F will implement a limit on how many hens a resident can have depending on the size of the lot, being 4 hens per one-quarter acre, with the limit being 12 hens total an acre and up.

In my research, I only found that USDA defines “organic” chickens by pounds-to-square foot. I could not find any documentation from the USDA, NOSB, AMS, WFAC, or other organizations to support chicken-to-acre limitations. This new arbitrary number of 4 hens per quarter acre will negate the aforementioned petition and Board decision from 2008, thus discarding the will of the people.

Finally, I’d like to touch upon Section 3.4.5-E-3-E, quote, “All enclosures shall be removed if the owner no longer maintains the enclosure or if removal is necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.” What criteria decides if the enclosure is not being maintained, or demands the removal of enclosures and the animals inside? This is vague and opens the town up to a host of potential Constitutional and North Carolina General Statute violations, particularly:
—NC G.S. 99A-1 Recovery of damages for interference with property rights
—NC G.S. 14-366 Molesting or injuring livestock
—NC G.S. 14-163 Poisoning livestock
—NC G.S. 160A-203.1 limitations of standards of care for farm animals
—NC Constitution Article 1 Section 7 on illegal suspension of laws
—US Bill of Rights Fourth Amendment on illegal search and seizure of private property

I believe that implementation of the new UDO Draft as-is is in violation of our Constitutional rights, and will position the Town toward preventable lawsuits.

I appreciate that you will weigh my concerns, and that of the will of the people, and respond appropriately. Thank you."