Hey all, I had my meeting today with the Planning Office on the Urban Ag Proposals. I want to apologize if this is a long read, but I want to be as thorough as possibly. I will be using a lot of maybes and could bes based on our discussion today. Before I begin, I want to say that Carolyn Laurie, who I met with, IS interested in working with people to address their concerns. She knows about animals and stated that she grew up around farm animals and that her specialty is more environmental planning than city. I found her to be articulate and very likeable. When we began our meeting, she produced the comments I had made (here and in other forums) in a written report, all in all it turned out to be a 14 page document that included CoT Staffs responses to each of the concerns raised. I will attempt to scan it and post it in the files section. Even though I have not had the chance to read the responses, I find that a positive because that shows that they are hearing us and willing to talk about the issues. The scheduled hour long meeting ran just shy of 2 hours and we might still be talking if she didnt have another meeting. She apologized for the unintended results of the proposal and stated that when this plan was begun the impression was that larger lots like mine were not zoned R-1. I provided Carolyn with several examples of lots that were zoned R-1 or R-2 instead of RH or SR which may be severely hampered by the new codes. She said that they would look into how to deal with these situations. The possibility of a Grand Father Clause was brought up by her. We dove into the Animal Units (AU) subject. They ARE keeping the AU approach but ARE NOT going to use decimals as the BLM/EPA for the sake of simplicity or the Mathematically Challenged. So we talked about the assigned AU and there seems to be some willingness to discuss this further We also had some discussion about AU Caps and I explained why it was not equitable to put at a cap on 3.3 acres that would limit someone who has 15 or 20 acres. She agreed and it looks like the AU Caps could be coming out of the next proposal. In addition I proposed that lots over 1 acre be allowed 3 AU instead of the 2 for lots under the current proposal. We also discussed the 4H and FFA exceptions. While, I agree that there shouldnt need to be an exemption, for someone on a 7,000sq ft lot, they would only have 2 AU. With the exceptions, it would allow any child the ability to get involved. So that will be staying. I also presented the standards for other miniature livestock from the Am. Livestock Conservancy and Am. Livestock Assoc. Breed Standards and it looks like other varieties of miniatures (sheep, goats,...) will be recognized besides just the named Dwarf Goats. She explained that, that was mentioned merely for example and not meant to be exclusionary of other miniatures. We also broached the subject of transitional phases and how that would affect numbers kept. For example, if I was raising turkeys and had a group ready to be processed in a week for Thanksgiving and I was raising the next flock so they would be ready for Christmas. Or if I had more than the permitted number of sheep because I had specifically bred them to coincide with Muslim or Jewish Holidays for my customers and they would be sold off in a couple of weeks. I also mentioned about laying hens that decline in productivity after the 2nd or 3rd year and I was going to cull some of them but that the replacement flock would require roughly 5 months before they begin laying. She said shed have to give that some thought and discuss that with the staff. She also stated to me that this is not intended to penalize anyone for growing their own food. We talked about my personal experiences with the CoT and the Zoning Dept and she understood some of my concerns with specific verbiage and how the person knocking on the door might go by the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. We talked about obtaining exemptions/permits and I recommended that anyone coming in for permits because of this should not be charged. She seemed to like that idea and will propose it to the Planning Group and her boss. We talked about setbacks, the plan at this point is a 20 setback from the neighbors residence. That led us to, well what if the neighbor puts an addition on. A possible solution to this would be for someone to take a couple of pictures of the existing neighbors house or saving a google satellite image and if you happen to be on good terms with your neighbor, getting a letter that at the time of the coop or shelter being built it is 20 or farther from their residence. She also mentioned the Dog House rule, which I was unaware of and which I need some clarification on before I attempt to explain it. I learned that the proposed screening of greenhouses, is not for noise but for visual aesthetics if over a certain height. When discussing the noise aspect and presented with the fact that most home use heating and cooling systems were under the CoT db requirements, it was suggested that baffle requirements might be removed from the proposal. The screening may be horticultural- is Oleanders or shrubbery and is an attempt to reduce the 200 setback currently required to a 50 setback from neighbors. Signs identifying the owner or caretaker of animals, would only be for Community Gardens that do not have an onsite caretaker. This would not apply to property owners raising animals at their own residences. So on the whole, I feel that it was a positive and productive meeting and that Carolyn truly wants to help ease the restrictions but we will have to see what the next draft looks like, which is scheduled for release shortly.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 04:01:41 +0000
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