Cold Spring Considers Allowing Residents To Keep Backyard Chickens With City Permits

COLD SPRING (WJON News) -- Some Central Minnesota residents may soon be able to keep chickens. Wednesday night, the Cold Spring City Council will vote on a new city ordinance that would allow people to have chickens on their property within city limits.

The ordinance would make it unlawful to have chickens unless the person has received a permit. An approved permit would allow people to keep up to six chickens on a single-family residence, provided they follow the outlined guidelines.

City Council Member Ryan Hennen says the proposed ordinance has safeguards in place:

"It will include the materials and things that the coop and the run can be made out of and also setbacks, so these provisions are going to help address nuisances. We're not trying to turn these residential neighborhoods into, like, ag properties; we're really just trying to establish some reasonable rules for limited residential use and then also making sure that everyone understands their responsibilities."

Hennen says if the council approves the ordinance, things should move pretty quickly as far as residents being able to obtain a permit.

The planning commission reviewed and approved the ordinance already. Hennen says there are some restrictions on the types of chickens people can have:

"No breeding chickens and no roosters. The rooster thing too that is kind of a two-fold thing: one for the breeding and two for the nosie part of it. Typically, the roosters are kind of the louder of the chickens, so those are prohibited as well."

If the ordinance is approved, the cost for the one-time permit would be $100, with only 10 permits issued in a calendar year.