Lafayette’s backyard chicken plan heads to city council as one-year trial

One-year sunset provision, permit system included in latest version of Lafayette’s backyard chicken ordinance. First city council vote scheduled for Monday night.

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LAFAYETTE’S BACKYARD CHICKEN PLAN HEADS TO CITY COUNCIL AS ONE-YEAR TRIAL

In the incubation stage since early spring, a proposal to allow Lafayette households to raise and keep backyard chickens will go to the city council Monday night.

A key condition in a revised draft of the ordinance, released this week: A one-year sunset on any approved ordinance that would require the city council to agree again in 2026 to keep chickens in the city code.

“All the different public hearings and then the (city council) caucuses and the input from the councilman, I think, has gotten us to a point where most people are comfortable with at least this one-year trial,” Eileen Hession Weiss, a city council member sponsoring the proposed ordinance, said Wednesday.

(Photo: Unsplash)

“We basically wanted to sunset it so that we could come back and revisit and say, ‘How did this work?’” Hession Weiss said. “Then, there will be a chance to make any tweaks needed. … I think we have this in a good place, right now.”

The core components of a draft ordinance drawn up earlier this year remain in the version going to the city council Monday, for the first of two required votes. That includes a limit of five hens per address for noncommercial use, no roosters, maintenance of birds so they don’t become a public nuisance and size requirements for coops and pens.

What’s new – after several city council members raised concerns, even as fans and even the city’s animal control officer pressed for approval – include these provisions: