Increased bylaw costs and fears they would attract bears and coyotes helped sink a proposal to allow backyard chicken coops in Greater Sudbury.
While the idea had some support on council, the spectre of even more bears coming to town to eat chicken feed – and chickens – posed too much of a risk for some councillors. A staff report on the idea said approving the plan would increase bylaw control costs, as inspections and complaints would take up significant time.
North Bay council was asked a couple of years ago to make a similar decision, but still, no action has been taken.
Ward 4 Coun. Geoff McCausland, at his first meeting since being elected in October, supported the idea. He proposed eliminating inspections of the coops to save on bylaw costs. Every other bylaw is complaint-driven, he said, and chicken coops should be the same.
“I don't believe chickens should take priority,” McCausland said.
With roughly 250 illegal coops already operating, he said the city receives very few complaints. Ward 5 Coun. Bob Kirwan, also a supporter, opposed imposing a one-hectare requirement for someone to have a coop, arguing almost no one would qualify.
“We should make it reasonable,” Kirwan said.
But Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier said it appears to him that no one who has experience with chickens was consulted during this process. It's not a good idea to have hens in residential areas, he said, for a number of reasons.
“Chicken droppings turn into ammonia,” Montpellier said.
When residents put that in the garbage, it will be toxic waste. Plus chickens die "a lot" and their remains will end up in the garbage, too.
“So there's a lot more to this.”
And Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer, who sits on the city's nuisance bear committee, said council needed to remember the problems the city has with nuisance bears. We have so many nuisance bears, Sizer said, we received two bear specialists from the province.
“Half of all nuisance bears calls come from Sudbury,” he said.
They will be attracted by the smell of the chicken feed, he said and will eat the chickens as well.
“I cannot allow, in good conscience, allow another attractant,” Sizer said. “Once they have a source of food, they will be back.”
Brendan Adair, who is in charge of the city's bylaw department, said currently they receive 8,000 bylaw complaints a year, allowing only two hours for each officer to deal with each complaint. Often, they take much longer. His concern was being realistic about the number of complaints and added work his department will receive so the city will know what to expect.
Ward 12 Coun. Jocelyne Landry-Altmann said she held meetings in her ward where residents were strongly opposed. Bears and coyotes could be drawn by the coops, something her residents want no part of and had concerns about the smell.
“It was resoundingly no,” Landry-Altmann said.
In the end, the resolution was easily defeated.
