By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — A Rockford aldermen wants residents to have the opportunity to raise chickens in their backyards, a controversial measure that he sees as a key way to create a more sustainable community.
“People want to live in sustainable communities, and part of that means that people are allowed to have a few more freedoms around growing large gardens for vegetables and having opportunities to raise animals that they can rely on for food,” Alderman Bill Rose said.
Rose is working with the city’s legal staff to develop an ordinance that would allow for urban hens, and he’s put forward an online petition he hopes will display support for the measure.
“This effort is mostly for educational purposes for children to learn about how to care for animals, how to raise birds and to promote more sustainable measures in our ecosystem,” he said in a Facebook post sharing the petition.
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The petition had about 380 signatures as of Tuesday evening. You can view it here.
The debate about allowing chickens in the city limits has come up here before, notably in 2014 when a family who was raising chickens learned after the fact that it was illegal and had to remove them from their property. The family spoke out at City Council meetings at the time, but aldermen never took up the measure.
Rose, a Democrat who represents the 9th Ward, said he had a similar experience when he arrived on the council in 2017 and inquired about allowing chickens.
“People did not want to touch it with a 10-foot pole,” he said. It was never brought forward for a vote.
Opponents of allowing urban hens say chicken coops can be unhealthy and an eyesore if run by an irresponsible owner. The coops can also smell and attract predators such as coyotes. Others raise health concerns because live poultry, much like uncooked chicken from a grocery store, can carry salmonella.
But those in favor of the measure say proper maintenance and care can prevent those issues.
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Others complain of the potential noise, but Rose said his ordinance will not allow for roosters, only the much quieter hens.
The ordinance is a working draft right now, “so I’m sure there will be a lot of work to it,” Rose said. “We want to make sure that this works for every neighborhood and doesn’t impose an undue burden in certain neighborhoods.”
Rose said the ordinance could give children a new means of agricultural education that could lead them toward careers as scientists, farmers and veterinarians.
With the ban on backyard chickens in place, “We’re essentially telling Rockford youth that these careers are not for you, and I don’t think that’s fair to our minority youth and I don’t think it’s fair to our youth in general,” Rose said. “We think that Rockford is on an island outside of this agricultural world, and quite honestly we’re a part of it.”
He doesn’t have a timeline for introducing the measure at City Council, where it would first be discussed by the Code and Regulation Committee that he chairs.
“What I’d really like to do is engage our community more on this,” Rose said. “I’m giving it time to garner the support, to get it out there that this is something we’re looking at and let people have a voice in this.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.