Chickens on ballot but without a lot of specifics

The Saukville Village Board on Tuesday approved a referendum question that will ask voters on the April 7 ballot if residents should be allowed to keep chickens in the village but provides little information about how they would be regulated.

That, officials said, is by design.

“I guess the way I look at this is we’re taking the temperature of the village,” Village President Andy Hebein said. “You tell us what your appetite for this is.”

The referendum is advisory, and officials want to know how residents feel about the concept of amending the village zoning ordinance to allow a limited number of chickens to be raised on single-family lots in the village before going through the work of drafting an ordinance with specifics about how they would be regulated.

“If people say no, then they’re not interested in having the village go through that whole process and set up regulations,” Village Administrator Dawn Wagner said. “If people say yes, they’re saying go put together some regulations, go through the process, make sure you amend the zoning code to allow for whatever amount of chickens.”

The referendum question reads, “Should the Village of Saukville consider amending its code of ordinances to allow residents to keep a limited number of chickens on single-family residential properties subject to a permit with regulations, including, but not limited to: prohibiting roosters, coop requirements (size, setbacks), and sanitation standards to be specified in the ordinance?”

If after the referendum the board decides to allow chickens in the village, staff members would draft an ordinance for consideration by the Plan Commission, which would undoubtedly tweak it. Then the village would hold a public hearing on it as required for all ordinance changes before it goes to the Village Board for a vote, Wagner said. 

Acting on a Plan Commission recommendation in October, the Village Board decided to put the chicken question to referendum rather than decide the issue as it did in 2021 when it, in agreement with the Plan Commission, rejected a request to change the zoning code to allow chickens in the village.

Trustees Pamela Duckart and her husband Jesse Duckart voted against putting the question on the ballot, with Mrs. Duckart saying she and her husband favor an ordinance allowing chickens and voted against the motion because they believe the board should decide the issue on its own.

Hebein, however, said a referendum is needed to settle the issue once and for all. 

“I’m convinced there are a number of folks who are interested (in keeping chickens) and a lot who are not,” he said in October. “If you don’t do a referendum, this could keep coming up over and over again.”

Saukville’s chicken debate has unfolded as the Village of Belgium considered allowing chickens, then decided against it. The City of Port Washington has received a request from a resident to allow chickens but has yet to consider it. All municipalities in Ozaukee County except those two and Saukville allow chickens, and in some cases other fowl.

The request that prompted the Saukville referendum was made by Tim Schwister and his mother Barbara Schwister, who also asked the village to allow chickens in 2021.

The Schwisters’ latest request was accompanied by a draft ordinance that Mr. Schwister said is based on extensive research of ordinances in area communities. 

Under it, residents would be allowed to keep female chickens and other domesticated egg or meat-producing fowl — including ducks — on single-family lots in the village subject to various conditions.

The number of birds would be capped at four on lots that are 1.5 acres or smaller with an allowance for an additional female bird per every additional half-acre up to a “reasonable limit.”

Roosters, as well as flightless birds such as ostriches and emus, would be prohibited.

The birds would have to be contained in predator-proof pens with ventilated coops in the backyards of homes that are set back  at least 40 feet from neighboring houses. 

The ordinance would prohibit the commercial sale of eggs, fertilizer production and breeding.

Bird waste would have to be disposed of in accordance with an existing ordinance and chicken owners would need to apply for and receive annual permits from the village. Schwister has suggested an initial permit fee of $25 and a renewal fee of $15.

Complaint-based enforcement would ensure that poultry is not kept in a way that creates a public health hazard, a nuisance in terms of odors, noise or sanitation or interferes with a “neighboring use or enjoyment of property,” according to Schwister’s proposed ordinance. 

Village officials have not discussed the draft ordinance, so it’s unclear if it would become a model for one the village would consider if it decides to allow chickens.