I finally got the permit from the city yesterday (1/4/11). I've been legally able to have up to 20 chickens since Monday, January 3, 2011.
The permit process itself gives me pause. I'm still trying to figure out why the permit cost so much when all the provisions listed in it I provided to the city council, the city planner and the city forrester. I should have been able to save that money and provided the necessary paperwork directly to the city.
Consulting is a racket. I need to get in that line of work.
Showing posts with label permit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label permit. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Coop Update
Jumping in mid-story...
As I'm finding out how to get my permit finalized to have the chickens, I find out that I may not be able to have a coop on my property wihtout jumping through a bunch of hoops and paying a butt load in consultant fees.
The city planner (again, she seems like a nice enough person) tells me about the rules for accessory buildings and what the restictions are. As we're talking, we're both going through the zoning ordinance. What it sounds like is if the accessory building is one that is more than six feet from the primary dwelling and at least 25 ft from the property line.
Whew. Sounds like everything is going to be okay. The coop is going to be near the house, outside the sub-garage (yes, I have a two story garage). It will be less than 120 sq ft (I'm not sure if I'll do an 8x12 or a 10x10) so I don't have to get a building permit.
Hold on, Big Shooter. There's a catch.
In order to do any "site improvements", a site survey is required. Even for a shed. That's next to the house. The consultant fee starts at $400 for the site survey. And will most likely be much more expensive once the surveyor is hired. Oh, this got the blood boiling. I just closed on this house in September. I have a property survey from then. Why do I need another one? Nothing has changed. Augh.
My options at this point:
Whatever I decide, I need to shit or get off the pot, soon. I have chickens hatching this weekend.
As I'm finding out how to get my permit finalized to have the chickens, I find out that I may not be able to have a coop on my property wihtout jumping through a bunch of hoops and paying a butt load in consultant fees.
The city planner (again, she seems like a nice enough person) tells me about the rules for accessory buildings and what the restictions are. As we're talking, we're both going through the zoning ordinance. What it sounds like is if the accessory building is one that is more than six feet from the primary dwelling and at least 25 ft from the property line.
Whew. Sounds like everything is going to be okay. The coop is going to be near the house, outside the sub-garage (yes, I have a two story garage). It will be less than 120 sq ft (I'm not sure if I'll do an 8x12 or a 10x10) so I don't have to get a building permit.
Hold on, Big Shooter. There's a catch.
In order to do any "site improvements", a site survey is required. Even for a shed. That's next to the house. The consultant fee starts at $400 for the site survey. And will most likely be much more expensive once the surveyor is hired. Oh, this got the blood boiling. I just closed on this house in September. I have a property survey from then. Why do I need another one? Nothing has changed. Augh.
My options at this point:
- Build the new coop, but attach it to the house.
- Convert the existing shed into the coop.
- Keep the chickens in the sub-garage.
Whatever I decide, I need to shit or get off the pot, soon. I have chickens hatching this weekend.
Permit Update
I've been getting harassed at work for not posting an update. So much, yet nothing, has happened over the past few days. There will be a few posts coming - each with a different topic. Unless I start to ramble, then who knows what you'll get.
I finally got the permit application from the city. To me, this should have been a no-brainer. Fill out some paperwork, send in a check, and I'd have my permit. But no. Not so easy in a small town.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I live in a very small town in the middle of the Twin Cities metro area. There are no city services - everything is contracted out. For the permit, I'm actually dealing with two consultants that the city hired. The city planner and the city Forrester. Both are nice people, but there is a level of bureaucracy I have to deal with that I hadn't anticipated. The Forrester is the person who will be approving the permit; however the city planner is the one who handles all the paperwork. As there are no city employees, the citizens with permit requests are the ones who end up paying for the administrative work instead of all the taxpayers. Fair, I guess, but not something I was expecting. An unintended expense.
The Forrester stopped by last week (Wednesday) with the permit application along with some instructions on how to fill out the form, who to write the check to and to add some additional details to the application around what I will and won't do, etc. The following day, I started to fill out the form and had a question. Since I was sending the information to the city planner, I called her. She gave me the answers I was looking. As we were talking, I confirmed a piece of information that I got from the Forrester the previous day. Each property can only have one primary and one accessory building on it, unless I applied for a conditional use permit.
My property has a house and a shed, so where am I going to put a coop? See coop update for details.
Back to the chicken permit.
I wrote up my proposal - I would have up to 20 hens (something the city said I could have); no roosters into adulthood (I wanted to protect myself for hatching eggs), the chickens would be housed in an appropriate coop (again, see coop update for details) and run; and they would not free range unless under direct supervision.
Well, this wasn't thorough enough. I had to revise my statement to add what materials the run would be made from, how I was going to keep feed, etc so as not to encourage pests, and how I was going to handle manure.
The permit is in the mail along with my check. Now I'm just waiting to be legal. Hope it comes before the chickens hatch.
I finally got the permit application from the city. To me, this should have been a no-brainer. Fill out some paperwork, send in a check, and I'd have my permit. But no. Not so easy in a small town.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I live in a very small town in the middle of the Twin Cities metro area. There are no city services - everything is contracted out. For the permit, I'm actually dealing with two consultants that the city hired. The city planner and the city Forrester. Both are nice people, but there is a level of bureaucracy I have to deal with that I hadn't anticipated. The Forrester is the person who will be approving the permit; however the city planner is the one who handles all the paperwork. As there are no city employees, the citizens with permit requests are the ones who end up paying for the administrative work instead of all the taxpayers. Fair, I guess, but not something I was expecting. An unintended expense.
The Forrester stopped by last week (Wednesday) with the permit application along with some instructions on how to fill out the form, who to write the check to and to add some additional details to the application around what I will and won't do, etc. The following day, I started to fill out the form and had a question. Since I was sending the information to the city planner, I called her. She gave me the answers I was looking. As we were talking, I confirmed a piece of information that I got from the Forrester the previous day. Each property can only have one primary and one accessory building on it, unless I applied for a conditional use permit.
My property has a house and a shed, so where am I going to put a coop? See coop update for details.
Back to the chicken permit.
I wrote up my proposal - I would have up to 20 hens (something the city said I could have); no roosters into adulthood (I wanted to protect myself for hatching eggs), the chickens would be housed in an appropriate coop (again, see coop update for details) and run; and they would not free range unless under direct supervision.
Well, this wasn't thorough enough. I had to revise my statement to add what materials the run would be made from, how I was going to keep feed, etc so as not to encourage pests, and how I was going to handle manure.
The permit is in the mail along with my check. Now I'm just waiting to be legal. Hope it comes before the chickens hatch.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Relief
The city council meeting was a non-event...other than the city gossip I got filled in on. But that's a different story.
The issue of chickens was a specific agenda item. I'm still amazed at that. Anyway, the city planner presented her findings then opened discussion for the council members. There was some back and forth for about 10 minutes about what the issues really were, how much needed to be done from a city code standpoint, etc. At one point, one of the council members made a comment about how this discussion would never had happened if "some poor sucker" hadn't brought it up in the first place. (I hope that makes it into the official meeting minutes.) They directed a couple of questions to the planner about how many chickens the resident was planning on keeping. I finally spoke up and made myself known as the sucker.
The final outcome was there won't be any changes made to the existing city code unless/until there are complaints from the neighbors. There take was the 'farmer' would know to take care against predators (there is a pack of coyotes nearby along with normal urban pests) and vermin so there shouldn't be a need to legislate that. And if there are issues, permits don't need to be renewed.
The person I was sitting next to at the meeting asked to buy the first dozen - turns out he is one of the incoming city council members. There was no need to worry after all.
Except that I still don't have a coop....and there are coyotes in the neighborhood.
Oh...and they left the ordinance as is, so pretty much and non-domesticated farm animal is on the table...a pygmy goat is in my future?
The issue of chickens was a specific agenda item. I'm still amazed at that. Anyway, the city planner presented her findings then opened discussion for the council members. There was some back and forth for about 10 minutes about what the issues really were, how much needed to be done from a city code standpoint, etc. At one point, one of the council members made a comment about how this discussion would never had happened if "some poor sucker" hadn't brought it up in the first place. (I hope that makes it into the official meeting minutes.) They directed a couple of questions to the planner about how many chickens the resident was planning on keeping. I finally spoke up and made myself known as the sucker.
The final outcome was there won't be any changes made to the existing city code unless/until there are complaints from the neighbors. There take was the 'farmer' would know to take care against predators (there is a pack of coyotes nearby along with normal urban pests) and vermin so there shouldn't be a need to legislate that. And if there are issues, permits don't need to be renewed.
The person I was sitting next to at the meeting asked to buy the first dozen - turns out he is one of the incoming city council members. There was no need to worry after all.
Except that I still don't have a coop....and there are coyotes in the neighborhood.
Oh...and they left the ordinance as is, so pretty much and non-domesticated farm animal is on the table...a pygmy goat is in my future?
Monday, December 6, 2010
Which Comes First? The chicken, the egg, or permission from the city?
I live in a small town within the Twin Cities metropolitan area. I just moved here a couple of months ago (Sept 2010). In my old neighborhood (3.5 miles up the road), there were only a handful of neighbors that I knew well enough to talk to and that was fine. Where I live now, there are only 500 residents. And I get the feeling that most of them know who I am.
Back on election day, I had to register to vote. I had no idea who I was voting for in the local elections, but I did my best to choose correctly (is alphabetically an appropriate voting technique?) Anyway, the election judges were very nice, helpful and chatty. The city clerk was there and I wanted to ask her about permits for the chickens. She told me I had to contact the city planner, but since I was leaving on vacation the next day, I put it off until I got back.
I get home from vacation the weekend before Thanksgiving. I called the city planner on Wednesday, 11/24 to ask her about permits, etc. She was waiting for my phone call. She had already researched the information and told me what I needed to do. I had to contact the city forester to get the permit. There were no other restrictions.
During the course of our call together, she mentioned that she was asked to come up with a proposal to present to the city council at the December meeting to better define the ordinances for farm animals. Apparently my seemingly innocent inquiry on election day turned into a bigger deal than I thought it would. The city wants to change the rules.
The city forester has never had to do this before, so he is looking for guidance as well. He and his wife actually stopped by the house yesterday. He told me he was going to wait until after the city council meeting. No big deal, but I would like my permit now so I can be grandfathered into the current rules, in case the new ones become too restrictive.
So it looks like I will be attending the city council meeting to hear the proposal. I plan on asking questions and making sure I can get my permit now. I have eggs hatching on Christmas so I'd like to be legal by then.
Back on election day, I had to register to vote. I had no idea who I was voting for in the local elections, but I did my best to choose correctly (is alphabetically an appropriate voting technique?) Anyway, the election judges were very nice, helpful and chatty. The city clerk was there and I wanted to ask her about permits for the chickens. She told me I had to contact the city planner, but since I was leaving on vacation the next day, I put it off until I got back.
I get home from vacation the weekend before Thanksgiving. I called the city planner on Wednesday, 11/24 to ask her about permits, etc. She was waiting for my phone call. She had already researched the information and told me what I needed to do. I had to contact the city forester to get the permit. There were no other restrictions.
During the course of our call together, she mentioned that she was asked to come up with a proposal to present to the city council at the December meeting to better define the ordinances for farm animals. Apparently my seemingly innocent inquiry on election day turned into a bigger deal than I thought it would. The city wants to change the rules.
The city forester has never had to do this before, so he is looking for guidance as well. He and his wife actually stopped by the house yesterday. He told me he was going to wait until after the city council meeting. No big deal, but I would like my permit now so I can be grandfathered into the current rules, in case the new ones become too restrictive.
So it looks like I will be attending the city council meeting to hear the proposal. I plan on asking questions and making sure I can get my permit now. I have eggs hatching on Christmas so I'd like to be legal by then.
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