LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ga. – The mountain’s backyard chickens still have a fighting chance to stay, at least until the next city council meeting.
Members of the Lookout Mountain City Council will vote at their next meeting on whether to amend a 30-year-old ordinance that bans chickens on any property smaller than 5 acres. On Thursday, they heard from two residents who proposed the amendment and who argue there are benefits to raising backyard chickens.
For years, people on the mountain have been keeping chickens on their properties, and not everyone’s property is 5 acres or bigger. It was just something that was forgotten about and never enforced. That is, until a woman on Cinderella Road called 911 on Sept. 29, 2017, to complain about the noise.
Justin Workman and Elizabeth Forrester’s roughly six-page proposal covered several bases, including parameters for proper chicken housing, location on property, annual permit fees, predator-proofing and a fact sheet to “debunk the myths” people may have about keeping chickens.
“The idea is to set really high standards for people that are going to have chickens,” Workman said. “You want to limit health and safety issues [and] ensure that everybody is acting properly and you don’t have a few bad apples, kind of ruining it, potentially, for people.”