Johns Creek, Roswell chicken owners fight City Hall

By Ralph Ellis


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

North Fulton folks who keep chickens in their backyards are many things, but they’re not chicken.

Since Roswell’s chicken ordinance was thrown out of court, this loose confederation of suburbanites has started pecking away at local government’s attempts to control their birds.

Roswell residents are successfully lobbying the City Council to loosen up the chicken ordinance that’s now being rewritten, one that might limit each household to 25 birds. And a Johns Creek woman has decided to go to court over her fowl, making her the first person ever charged in that city in a chicken case.

Roswell Mayor Jere Wood noticed the new assertiveness after Andrew Wordes, who’d been cited for having chickens, got a judge to throw out the city’s ordinance in May because the wording was ambiguous.

“They’re emboldened,” said Wood, who keeps two chickens. “Andrew was kind of beaten down at first but when he won his case he was empowered. They developed a coalition and that builds confidence.”

Since the court case, there’s no law against chickens in Roswell, and a lot of people like it that way. Residents such as Alan Christian argue that backyard chickens don’t need regulating at all unless there’s too much noise or smell — situations covered by existing ordinances.

“There’s not a problem,” Christian said. “They want to write a new restriction for no reason.”

Who are these chicken lovers? Many are soccer moms and dads who want chickens for fresh eggs or as pets, said Andy Schneider of Johns Creek, a chicken advocate called “The Chicken Whisperer.”

Christian, a mortgage broker and “tree-hugging Republican,” got about a dozen chickens so his children could learn responsibility. He can’t find a common element among chicken lovers “beyond people like to have chickens and like the green thing.”

Almost none of them are in it for the money. It’s a hobby, because overhead — coops, fencing, feed — far exceeds savings from free eggs.

How big is this group? It’s hard to say, but as of Thursday, the Atlanta Backyard Poultry Meetup Group Web site listed 739 members. The Web site seems to be one of the chief ways chicken keepers communicate.

After losing in court, Roswell started rewriting the ordinance. After input from chicken keepers, the city tried again, using the Atlanta ordinance as a model. The number of chickens that would be allowed went from four in the first draft to 25 in the second.

There’s a grandfather clause; people now keeping 25 birds could keep another 15 by obtaining a permit in the three months after the ordinance becomes law.

The second version allows roosters and dropped requirements for coop and pen size. Birds must be enclosed and only kept at single-family residences. Violations would be investigated only when complaints come in, said Kay Love, the Roswell city administrator.

For Wordes, it’s an improvement over the old law, but he still doesn’t like it. “I don’t believe it’s government’s place to tell citizens how they may and may not use their property,” he said.

Love says the city wants to accommodate people with non-traditional pets, but must ensure commercial chicken enterprises don’t spring up in residential areas. More hearings will be held. If the current draft proceeds without big revisions, it could become law in mid-December, Love said.

Meanwhile, Martha Mellon prepares to face the Johns Creek law in a Sept. 24 court date.

Mellon started keeping chickens earlier this year because they make great pets for her three sons. Mellon said she built a coop behind her house after making sure her chickens were more than 100 feet from the nearest occupied building, as the city animal ordinance requires.

Code enforcement officers warned Mellon that she was violating the zoning ordinance; on Aug. 24 the city cited her, saying she raised poultry within 200 feet of neighboring property lines. She didn’t know about the zoning requirement, and got mad upon discovering the city chose to prosecute with the more restrictive law.

“I decided on the principle of the thing to fight it,” she said.

The city public information officer, Bill Doughty, said he couldn’t talk about the case because it’s active litigation, but he confirmed this is the first chicken citation in the city’s two years and eight months of existence. Other complaints were cleared up after warning notices were sent to homeowners, he said.

Mellon agrees with Christian that chicken ordinances are unnecessary. Christian, however, is fatalistic about the intentions of government.

“I don’t have 25 chickens. I don’t plan to have 25 chickens,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of them coming up with a specific number. But I know they’re going to.”