I’m having an issue that I know a lot of you might relate to/sympathise with. I’m not currently a permaculturist due to not having my own land, but I try and incorporate some of the founding ideas in the way I do garden my small plot of land and I’m heavily interested in progressing in the future. I know a lot of people online use chickens to help keep pests down and to create natural cycles that produce food healthy dirt, and this relates to chickens.
We’ve had chickens (and roosters) for years that are beloved pets. The chickens were legal until a bit ago, when the city suddenly changed our zoning to build houses “nearby”. We have an acre surrounded by 3 acres of unusable land (for building) and then surrounded by houses that genuinely don’t care about our animals being there and even like them. Half have chickens and roosters themselves.
My neighbor got reported for a bunch of stuff in a stupid spot with the landlord, and the city person saw our chickens from over the fence when I heard the neighbor chickens reacting to someone being in his yard. Nobody ever reported us or even cared.
We’re supposed to be grandfathered in since my grandfather owned the land before us and before the city was even a city (we pay his tax rate and everything), but he city says there is no such thing. I tried going to a lawyer but don’t have the money to pay out of pocket. I looked into a variance on land use. I looked into changing the zoning back, but don’t want to stop needed homes from being built by doing so and don’t want to get into a losing battle with the millionaires trying to make money off our area.
The ONLY fair solution I could come up with, is modeling the language used in the neighbor city’s regulations for number of chickens and how roosters must be kept quietly, etc., and trying to legalize chickens in all zones and roosters where reasonable. (Selfishly, legalizing roosters on land such as mine where they are not an issue).
I know this doesn’t fully change how Moreno Valley Residents can use their land, but it does progress rights slightly on this front and hopefully it is useful for the community as a whole and can inspire further change as well …
If anyone is in Moreno Valley or knows of people in Moreno Valley and would like to sign my petition or share it with others, I attached it and could REALLY REALLY use your help. I refuse to lose them but I can’t pay $700 a week to keep them and also risk losing the property and/or going to jail for not listening to code enforcement 🙃🙃🙃🙃
https://www.change.org/p/protect-moreno-valley-residents-rights-to-pet-ownership-and-food-security/sfs/copy/623312876?recruiter=623312876&recruited_by_id=0342f280-a302-11e6-9c43-b96f36c71741&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard_share_modal&utm_medium=copylink
