District of North Vancouver council is giving the public one more go-around on whether chicken coops ought to be permitted in neighbourhood backyards.
Council was set to vote Monday, yay or nay, on whether to allow hens but instead decided to send the matter to public hearing.
It’s been roughly a year since council first started exploring the idea, at the request of the Canadian Liberated Urban Chicken Klub.
The City of North Vancouver welcomed chickens four years ago and the District of West Vancouver one year ago.
A survey of residents found 226 in support of backyard chickens and 63 opposed. A number of would-be practitioners of chicken husbandry showed up to lobby council, although the familiar concerns about the coops being attractants for predators remain.
There was also some confusion over whether the change would have the support of the North Shore Black Bear Society. The society had given tentative approval, if the bylaw required a mandatory inspection of the coop and fee but those provisions were not in the bylaw given first reading Monday.
“We believe that a mandatory inspection is very, very important,” said the society’s education co-ordinator Christine Miller. “The North Shore Black Bear Society doesn’t want chickens predated upon and we certainly don’t want bears killed as a result.”
Still council opted to turn the matter over to a yet-to-be-scheduled public hearing. Few on council expected there to be much uptake for the backyard hens, even among supporters of the bylaw.
“I think if the district was looking at a large number of potential coops being established in the district, I would probably hesitate to endorse this motion...” he said. “I think we’re looking at a dozen registrants, at most, and the regulations in terms of noise, smell and safety of enclosure seem to me, from the report, to be fairly vigorous,” said Coun. Robin Hicks.
Coun. Roger Bassam, however, was deeply skeptical.
“I don’t think there’s any need. As a matter of fact, I know there’s no need for us to be introducing chickens as backyard livestock,” he said. “We do have a need for safety and security and bringing an alpha predator attractant into our community just don’t make any sense to me.”
Sardonically, Coun. Mathew Bond suggested the district was being asked for onerous levels of regulation for backyard hens while taking a much more hands-off approach to other known bear attractants.
Bond questioned whether bird feeders and fruit trees should also be fitted with electric fences and subject to inspections and fees, as some on council and in the community were seeking from the proposed chicken bylaw.
