This article by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on Sept. 21.
Many Williston residents are ignoring a town ban on keeping chickens on small residential lots. Rather than enforce the ban, Williston planners believe it’s time to change the rules.
Williston Zoning Administrator Matt Boulanger took the recent opportunity of crafting new affordable housing regulations to attempt to lift the ban on backyard chickens, which are listed as “livestock” in Williston’s zoning bylaw and prohibited on lots of less than 1 acre. It was the “first hard look at our zoning bylaws in a post-Covid world,” he wrote in a Sept. 1 memo to the selectboard, and allowing chickens is an attempt to “improve food resilience.”
But selectboard members who recalled the contentious debate on the subject five years ago — both Ted Kenney and Terry Macaig remain on the board from that time and both opposed lifting the ban — advised the board to slow the process.
“There are a fair number of folks in Williston on lots that are smaller than an acre, often in a suburban setting, who, despite the zoning prohibition, have backyard chickens,” Boulanger said, adding that his office hasn’t received any complaints about it. “This is not the first time our bylaws are somewhat behind what’s happening out in the world. Sometimes zoning disallows something … and we start to wonder if that still makes sense.
“At a relatively small scale,” he added, “it’s something that can be done without creating a nuisance for your neighbors.”
The noise of a rooster crow, the containment of feces, the wafting of odors and the potential for disease spread were all things that weighed on the 2018 board’s 3-2 decision to continue the backyard chicken ban.
The planners’ current proposal would create an allowance for up to 12 chickens per household with a buffer from property lines of 15 feet for chicken coops and 20 feet for bedding and feed, and it would require regular removal of manure. It’s more permissive than the 2018 proposal, which would have allowed up to six chickens per flock and disallowed the male of the species — the notoriously loud rooster.
In proposing to allow roosters, Boulanger said noise complaints could be regulated under the town’s noise ordinance.
At its Sept. 5 meeting, the board voted unanimously to forward the housing regulations to a public hearing while separating out the chicken regulations for further scrutiny.
Kenney indicated that the 12-chicken allowance might be too many.
“I voted against it the last time at six,” he said.
In a dense neighborhood where multiple households are each keeping 12 chickens, that could amount to dozens of chickens within a small area, he said.
“The noise and the odor and the things that will come to feed on the feed are all significant issues,” he said. “I’m pretty concerned about that. And the fact that people do it – well people speed too, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have speed limits.”
