Sugar Grove may allow backyard chickens

Sugar Grove is likely to allow residents to keep chickens in their backyards.

Trustees Tuesday said they favor a one-year trial. They directed city workers to draw up the necessary revisions in the city's zoning code and bring it back for a vote.

“I think it is worth exploring,” Village President Sean Michels said.

The matter came up in March, after someone noticed a neighbor was raising chickens in a backyard, which is against the law. The two girls raising the chickens then asked the board for permission to keep them.

Community development director Walter Magdziarz presented a report on what other suburban communities have done, particularly St. Charles and Elgin.

Michels asked whether other cities require people to get a permit. Typically, people have to get a permit to build the coop and the enclosed run, according to Magdziarz. Some towns require a permit for owning the animals.

Homeowners associations would be able to adopt rules prohibiting chicken-keeping, according to the village's lawyer, Steven Andersson.

Trustees agreed with Magdziarz's recommendations that there be a limit of four chickens; that roosters be prohibited; that coops and runs be built in a way that keeps predators out; that they keep the area clean enough that neighbors can't smell it; and that if people store feed outside, they keep it in a rodent-proof container.

Trustee Mari Melson Johnson asked how the village would determine if there was “a detectable odor,” given people's varying senses of smell, and that it could shift with the wind.

“I just see this as a can of worms that is going to be hard to enforce,” Johnson said.

No date was set for a vote.