Backyard chickens will be allowed on fewer than a hundred residential properties in Richmond.
A final 5-4 decision was made at council on Monday to only allow chickens on single-family residential properties larger than half an acre.
According to the city, there are about 85 lots that are large enough to accommodate chickens under the new rules.
There are more than 16,000 single-family lots smaller than half an acre in Richmond where they won’t be allowed.
Voting against these changes were Couns. Harold Steves, Kelly Greene, Carol Day and Michael Wolfe.
Greene argued for integrating the backyard chicken program that was in another option staff had formulated, but in the end, the motion went through just restricting chickens to half-acre or larger lots.
Steves said now is the time to be encouraging people to have backyard chickens and grow food in their yards.
He said the idea of disease is “overblown” and he has never heard of anyone with backyard chickens having diseases. Furthermore, he said, people who have backyard chickens can use the manure for fertilizer in their gardens.
He added the city is “over-reacting” by banning backyard chickens on smaller single-family lots.
“We’re at a time now where we should be encouraging people to develop urban agriculture and grow victory gardens and start feeding themselves because of climate change and the world-wide disruption of food,” Steves said.
After surveying other municipalities, there was a general consensus that those who keep backyard chickens are “responsible caretakers,” providing proper living conditions and coops and treat their chickens humanely, according to the report.
Risks identified by Richmond city staff – abandonment, unhygienic housing conditions, more noise, pests and predators – were not found to be a problem in Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and Surrey.
The animal control bylaw amendments also removed a restriction to have backyard chickens on Agricultural Land Reserve properties that are smaller than half an acre. While this has been part of the bylaw for several years, the report noted it’s not compliant with the Right to Farm Act.
