From farm to tabled:

A proposed ordinance to allow Village of Belgium residents to keep chickens has been put under the proverbial heat lamp.

The Village Board on Monday voted to table action on the ordinance at the suggestion of Trustee Chris Plier, who wants to give the board more time to examine the recommendation from the Public Safety Committee.

“My position on it is I would like to ask this board to have more of a collaborative review of this prior to taking a vote,” Plier said.

“I had over the weekend to look at it. I would just ask the board, before we take a vote tonight, we just take a pause, maybe have one short meeting of the board just to collaborate on it, talk about the pros and cons and maybe take a vote at the next meeting.”

The Public Safety Committee met three times, first to discuss the idea in general, then to hammer out the details of an ordinance after a listening session was held and the Village Board gave the OK to develop an ordinance.

Village President Roseann Geib said too few residents are interested in owning chickens to keep delaying action.

“In all honesty, to me there are 2,500 people who live in this village and eight showed up,” she said of the chicken ordinance listening session. “I can’t see changing an ordinance for something that minimal. For as many people showed up who wanted this, just as many hated it.

“My theory on it is how long are we going to drag it out? I honestly don’t see the interest.”

Trustee Rose Sauers said she thought the board could use more time if it planned to approve the ordinance.

“If we’re prepared to vote it to the negative tonight, no harm, no foul because it’s a moot point,” she said, then clarified, after an inquiry from Geib, that her idiom was not meant to be a pun.

Sauers said she would have preferred to hold a referendum on the topic but said she knows those are expensive.

Plier made the motion to table the issue. The board unanimously supported it.

The proposed ordinance would allow as many as four chickens — no roosters — to be kept in the backyard of a single-family residence.

An inspection by the village marshal would be required, and annual and renewal fees would be charged.

Coops and pens would have to be at least 15 feet from lot lines, must be in the backyard and at least 25 feet from any residence. They would have to be closer to the chicken owners’ residence than that of any neighbor.

One nesting box of at least three square feet would be required per chicken and must be connected to the pen, which would have to allow at least eight square feet per chicken.

Chickens would have to have access to feed and water at all times, and food would have to be protected from predators.

Eggs would not be allowed to be sold, and chickens would not be allowed to be slaughtered on site.

If a chicken has a contagious disease, the owners would have to notify the village.

Waste would have to be disposed of adequately, not create a public nuisance and not be deposited at the village’s recycling center.

The request to own chickens was brought to the Village Board in spring by Megan Phillips, who filed the request via a petition on change.org. Phillips said her family grows as much non-genetically modified food as possible.