Backyard chickens back on Farmingotn council agenda

Talk about it

It’s been over a year since the Farmington City Council last talked about allowing residents to keep chicken coops in their yards, but the topic is coming up again at Monday’s meeting.

According to Farmington city administrator David McKnight, three Farmington teens have asked to participate in Monday’s council meeting. They want to ask council members to consider allowing residents to keep chickens on residential lots in Farmington.

Council members and planning commission members spent the better part of 2011 working through an ordinance that would have allowed chicken coops on residential lots. Currently, chickens and other animals are allowed on residential lots of 2 ½ acres or better. The 2011 proposal would have allowed for chicken coops on lots of all sizes, though no more than six chickens were allowed, and an annual fee would have been assessed.

Farmington assistant planner Tony Wippler worked through the ordinance process with the planning commission and city council in 2011. On Tuesday, Wippler said he still has all of his notes from the previous discussions, but he plans to wait until council members decide whether they want to revisit the ordinance before he starts working on it again.

“We would want to go through the whole process again,” Wippler said. “It has been two years, and that’s provided that the council wants us to go that route and review it again. Until we have this meeting on Feb. 4, I don’t know what their thought process is.”

In 2011, the Farmington planning commission voted 4-0 to forward an ordinance allowing chicken coops on all residential lot sizes to the city council. At the time, current councilmember Doug Bonar was a member of the planning commission, and supported the recommendation, Wippler said.

The proposed 2011 ordinance was rejected on a 3-2 vote. Of those still on the current council, mayor Todd Larson and council member Jason Bartholomay were in favor of the ordinance, while Christy Jo Fogarty and Terry Donnelly voted against.

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