Livestock Ordinance Raises Hackles at Planning and Zoning

A recently passed ordinance on keeping livestock was discussed briefly at last night's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. I have closely followed this ordinance, because my family raises much of our food (including meat) on a small farm in Westfield.

I have strong opinions about this ordinance. Thus, before my report on P&Z and the ordinance, I feel I owe faithful readers a disclosure of my own perspective. I include links to many of the documents related to this issue, for you to draw your own conclusions.

BACKGROUND AND OPINION
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The Crafting Of An Ordinance
The Common Council on March 7 approved an amendment to the ordinance regulating the keeping of livestock in our city. This ordinance, which is now the law of the City, took nearly 5 years to be enacted.

It was written by the Chief Public Health Sanitarian Sal Nesci, and first presented to the Board of Health in the fall of 2006. For reasons which are not clear to me, the Board of Health then took no action on this ordinance for almost 3 years.

In the summer of 2009, the Farm Bureau and the CT Department of Agriculture wrote to the Board of Health informing them that the ordinance as written was in violation of State Right to Farm laws (C.G.S. 19a-341), and would cripple farming in Middletown (Dept. of Agriculture letter, and the Farm Bureau letter). One of the farmers' biggest concerns was that the ordinance required them to keep their animals at least 25 feet from the property line, effectively 'taking' a huge swath of land from them. Another was that grazing would be prohibited near bodies of water, a prohibition which contradicts State wetlands regulations granting grazing as a right in wetlands. Joan Nichols, of the Farm Bureau, offered to work with the Board of Health in crafting a revised ordinance which would not be devastating to farming.

In October of 2009, the Board of Health sent the ordinance (without any changes) to the Council. The Council declined to vote on the ordinance and asked the Planning and Zoning Commission to review the ordinance.

P&Z held public hearings on the ordinance in February of 2010. The Farm Bureau and many individual farmers attended the hearing, and testified that the ordinance as written would be devastating to farming in Middletown (Farm Bureau letter). I also spoke against the ordinance, in support of farmers and in support of people who might want to keep livestock on a non-commercial farm. Nichols again offered her help to the city in crafting a new ordinance.

The Planning and Zoning Commission gave a unanimous negative recommendation to the ordinance as written, based on the public comments, expert opinions from the Farm Bureau, and an examination of the best practices of other communities. The Commission provided 11 specific reasons why the ordinance was unacceptable, emphasizing the 25 foot taking of the edge of any farm property and the 75' taking of land around bodies of water (my collation of P&Z objections). It cited the recently passed regulations in Guilford as a model for Middletown's ordinance.

The day after the meeting, on February 25, 2010, the Planning Department sent the Commission's recommendations to Nesci in the Health Department. It also forwarded an email from Nichols offering Farm Bureau assistance in crafting a new ordinance, and it forwarded the Guilford regulations (click on photo to right to enlarge email).

The Board of Health ignored all but one of the objections raised by P&Z, and never approached the farming community to consult on this ordinance. The primary change was to the very beginning of the ordinance, an attempt to exempt commercial farms from the ordinance (failed, because there is no farm registry):

The keeping of livestock in the city of Middletown shall remain consistent with the Federal Right to Farm Act and Federal Farm Bill as well as any Federal and/or State regulations pertaining to farming, agriculture, and the Connecticut Public Health code. Furthermore, existing and future registered farms meeting the criteria above are exempt from this section.

The Ordinance goes on with the same language it had in 2006:

In all other applications, the keeping of poultry and other species of birds, cattle, horses, goats, sheep or any other animal that, in the opinion of the Director of Health, based on State health regulations and codes, may create a nuisance or public health hazard is prohibited. ...

The Board of Health sent this minimally modified ordinance (full text) to the Ordinance Study Commission in December, this then went on to be approved by the Common Council. Importantly, no changes were made to the 25' setback from the property line, or the 75' setback from bodies of water, changes requested by farmers in multiple letters, and by the Planning and Zoning Commission in a unanimous vote.

After I contacted them, several elected officials asked Nesci about the input from Planning and Zoning. Here is what Nesci wrote to two separate elected officials:

We received a copy of a communication that P and Z staff sent to the council in October of 2010...8 months after the initial meeting of the planning and zoning commission. We received this communication thanks to Grady Faulkner who requested it. Unfortunately, I wan unsuccessful in any attempt to get this information. Once we received it, we reviewed it all and paid very close attention to the 6 friendly amendments Commissioner Ken McClellan offered as well as the 5 comments made by commissioners following the making of the amendments. I can honestly say that each and every point was reviewed and compared to what we had drafted. Clarifications were made where appropriate. Unfortunately, it seemed that most of there concerns were based on opinion rather than factual information which could have been addressed if they asked us to attend their hearing or requested explanations following their meeting. We were never invited or requested to attend their meeting and unfortunately knew nothing about it until we read about it in the paper following the meeting.

My Opinion (in case it is not obvious already)
This is an awful ordinance for at least two reasons. First, no farms are exempt from the regulation, simply because there is no way to make a farm "registered", there is no such thing as a farm registry! Therefore, each and every one of the 11 specific problems with the ordinance that were identified by P&Z remain a serious concern to all farmers. Second, the ordinance makes no distinction among "livestock", it treats 2 hens the same as 20 ostriches or 200 llamas. This flies in the face of logic, why should hens be regulated as stringently as llamas (and much more stringently than 20 Lhasa Apso)?

Hens are extremely easy and rewarding to keep in a small backyard. They provide eggs (roosters are unnecessary for egg production), they eat kitchen scraps and insects such as ticks and fleas, and they provide healthy and honest manure for growing flowers and vegetables. To anyone who enjoys watching a pecking order in action (who doesn't!) and to anyone who enjoys watching animals (all children, in my experience), hens are an endless source of entertainment and education. Four hens would be happy in a 4' X 8' enclosure with a single nest box for laying eggs (see for example the eglu).

For all these reasons, many cities have recently made the keeping of a few hens a right on all residential properties. For example, the New Haven Ordinance allows up to six hens on any property within its most common residential zoning districts. Their enclosure must be 5 feet from a property line, and no roosters are allowed. The Bridgeport ordinance states only that hens must be penned.

It is not at all clear what problem is being addressed by the taking of farmland and the restriction of hens from the backyard. I cannot ask this question any better than my daughter did as she closed her letter to Mayor Giuliano, asking him (in vain) to veto the ordinance:

And is it too bold of me to ask, but what for? What few benefits that we gain make it so appealing to strip hard working farmers of their resources? So that those nearby do not have to see where their food comes from? So that the smell of manure is moved back 25 feet? Passing this ordinance benefits few, and hurts many. We farmers need that land, for the goats and the chickens, for the sheep and the cows that have used that land for years and, in some cases, have no where else to go. On this statement I would like to close, and implore you to please consider what this means for Middletown and its people, and whether it really is for the better.

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Enough of the background and my opinions on this, and back to Planning and Zoning.

At every Commission meeting, there is an opportunity for the public to comment on items not on the agenda, and I used this to speak to the livestock ordinance. I reviewed its history, including the rejection of the Commission's recommendations by the Board of Health and ultimately by the Council. I read from the New Haven and Bridgeport ordinances. I closed by asking that the Commission support the creation and passage of an amendment which would truly protect and encourage farming in our City.

Later in the meeting, Phipps defended the Commission's work, "I want to make it clear that our commission did its job." He also commended the Council for referring this ordinance, which deals with land use, to the Planning and Zoning Commission. However, Phipps was disappointed that their recommendations were ignored, "None of our recommendations were taken into account."

Phipps said he had invited Nesci to the Commission meeting, but Nesci declined, requesting instead that the Planning and Zoning Commission attend a Board of Health information session on the livestock ordinance, scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Other commissioners were also disappointed that a land use ordinance unanimously opposed by Planning and Zoning Commission was passed by the Common Council. The commissioners unanimously agreed that Phipps should send a letter on behalf of the Commission to the Mayor, Nesci, and the Common Council, reiterating its concerns over the ordinance, focusing in particular on the lack of protection for commercial farms.

Several of the commissioners said they would attend the Board of Health Informational meeting on the livestock ordinance on Friday. The Commission agreed to have Commissioner Ken McClellan speak on its behalf, reading from a letter to be prepared by Phipps.

The Health Department informational meeting on the new livestock ordinance is scheduled for 3 PM this Friday, in Council Chambers.