Clearfield chickens out

CLEARFIELD — If you want to keep chickens in Clearfield, keep them in the city's agricultural zone.

The Clearfield City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday against a proposed ordinance that would have allowed chickens to be kept within the city's residential zone.

The ordinance would have set requirements for keeping only chicken hens on residential lots of at least 6,500 square feet. The chickens would not have been allowed to roam freely, but would have had to live in an enclosure that was at least 15 feet from the nearest neighboring property.

But those provisions, as well as pleas of support from at least seven residents, weren't enough to sway three council members from voting no.

Councilman Mark Shepherd said he spent nine years on the city's planning commission trying to clean up Clearfield, and that chickens in neighborhoods would have been a step backward.

"I have a real issue bringing an agricultural zone into a residential neighborhood," Shepherd said. "I have a real problem with it."

Shepherd cited a negative response to the ordinance from the Davis County Sheriff's Office, which performs animal-control functions in Davis County, as well as the possibility that realtors, like himself, would have a hard time selling homes if they had to disclose that chickens lived next door to the home being sold.

Shepherd and councilwoman Kathryn Murray said residents they talked to were opposed to having chickens in residential areas of the city.

But councilmen Vern Phipps and Doyle Sprague said they heard overwhelming support from residents they talked to. And the planning commission had supported the ordinance 7-1, Phipps said.

Residents who addressed the council also were firmly in support of chickens.

Katherine Arave said she had hoped the ordinance would have passed, because her husband has been unemployed for 18 months with no real job prospects, and her family is working to be self-sufficient to adequately feed her five children.

She's disappointed the ordinance failed, because she could have had access to free chickens to bring to her home and free supplies to build an enclosure.

Arave said her neighbors were excited about the possibility of having farm-fresh eggs and that relatives who keep chickens in Kaysville and Syracuse don't have problems in their neighborhoods.

Arave said she won't vote for Shepherd again and disagreed with his concerns about noise caused by hens. She said she thinks it's unlikely the ordinance would be revisited by the current council, but she would like the ordinance to go to a vote of all residents.

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