The Chicken Activist's Letter to Scott Matheson

I belong to an grass-roots network, 4 Chesapeake Hens, that is trying to change local zoning laws to allow more residents to keep backyard laying hens. Here is a letter emailed to a member of City Council as a part of this ongoing effort.

Dear Scott W. Matheson:

Common wisdom states that whoever “controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world."

I belong to a grass-roots organization called “4 Chesapeake Hens.” Our quest for backyard laying hens is an effort by “we the people” to control where our own money goes, to make a small dent in the world’s petroleum consumption by eating as locally as our own backyards, and to take control of our food supply for our own health, safety, and happiness.

Some may argue that hens should be restricted due to urban density. But a retired basketball player, Will Allen, established a non-profit organization, “Growing Power,” that proves otherwise. “Growing Power” is located in the major city of Milwaukee, the 28th most populous city in the United States. 

Will Allen

A successful author, Allen is a recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award and was named one of the top 100 “people who most affect our world” in Time magazine in 2010. His organization operates an urban mini-farm on two acres, a lot no bigger than that of a small supermarket. People from all over the world come to learn how “Growing Power” manages to successfully raise over 20,000 plants, vegetables, and livestock such as worms, bees, goats, rabbits, and chickens so intensively and successfully on such a small lot. In a world facing economic hardship, peak oil, global warming, and the twin crises of food insecurity and alarming obesity rates, many see Allen’s growing methods as instrumental to solving some of the problems that we as a society are facing. As Allen puts it:

Everybody, regardless of their economic means, should have access

to the same healthy, safe, affordable food that is grown naturally (source).

Or as Time puts it:

A new movement is sprouting up in America's low-income neighborhoods.

Some urban residents, sick of fast food and the scarcity of grocery stores, have decided to grow good food for themselves. (ibid.)

“Growing Power” runs youth programs for inner-city youth that are so (sic) inspiring and effective. In January Allen earned national recognition for his efforts from the National Education Association (http://www.growingpower.org/blog/archives/905).

What does this have to do with Chesapeake?

Our contention is that, just as residents of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Chicago, and even Milwaukee can raise chickens legally, so can we here, given fair and just zoning laws. Changes to our zoning laws will allow us residents to feed ourselves better and to teach our youth the value of sustaining ourselves in an ecologically sound and humane manner. Through 4-H and other programs, the youth of Chesapeake will learn valuable economic and science lessons as well as learn where our food comes from.

Please change the zoning laws in Chesapeake to allow residents to keep up to six laying hens as pets. Open the door to residents and change-makers, perhaps even a future Will Allen, to make hens a part of our future urban farming efforts.

 Update: On November 20, Chesapeake City Council voted 6-3 to allow hens with certain restriction in residential areas.

Why Were Hens Banned in Chesapeake? The Chicken Activist's Response

In my previous post I asked John King, Chesapeake, VA's, Zoning Administrator, when and why laying hens were originally banned from most residents' back yards. He emailed me the "when," but I had to call him to find out the "why." What he told me by telephone, on July 26, 2012, as I explained in my last post, is this:

He said that chickens have been zoned the way they have since the beginning of zoning in Chesapeake. The reason is that chickens are livestock and that there were concerns about livestock in cities due to "urban density." He asserted that at the time the zoning laws were adopted, Chesapeake was becoming denser in population, and he implied the restriction on chickens as livestock was reasonable. He asked me if I could imagine every Chesapeake resident, even apartment dwellers, owning chickens.

My husband later asked me, "What if every Chesapeake resident and apartment-dweller raised a dog?" 

Or even rabbits, which are also perfectly legal. It seems to us the objection is the misconception that hens belong in an isolated area on acres of land. Period. 

At the time I answered Mr. King that I could indeed see even apartment dwellers owning and managing hens as part of a co-op. 

Perhaps Mr. King has never had a chance to learn about Milwaukee's Growing Power, a non-profit urban farm managed by a MacArthur Genius Award recipient, Will Allen. He is the author of a great book, The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities. His 3-acre urban farm in the middle of the city is so intensively managed, he feeds 10,000 people with it. 

And, yes, the farm does not produce just  vegetables. Growing Power's livestock includes worms, fish, poultry, and even goats, as can be seen in this video. The compost from the livestock, especially the worms, is vital to growing vegetables as sustainably and intensively as this farm does.

Perhaps those who, like Mr. King, cannot imagine chickens in urban areas are unaware that they are raised, legally, even in dense urban areas like Chicago and New York City. 

That's right! 

Residents, even apartment dwellers, raise chickens in communal gardens in the Bronx and Brooklyn. A non-profit in New York City, called "Just Food," educates city residents and helps them to set up and maintain these kinds of positive, healthy, communal spaces. This video shows the fantastic results of their efforts.

If our local zoning administrators plan to advise against hens due to urban density, they had better think again. If these positive programs can happen in Milwaukee and New York City, certainly they can happen in Chesapeake. Our city is less dense, I am sure, and has fewer residents than these major metropolitan areas.  

Chesapeake, Virginia, does, indeed have "food deserts" according to the USDA. It seems to us that local zoning should work with City Council to address this problem, and to study how community gardens and urban hens might work as part of the solution to it. People, even low-income ones, even minorities, even apartment-dwellers, have the right to control their own food supply, and reasonable accommodations should be made to those who want to go about this responsibly. The community, this means the rest of us, should help them.