Palatine won't let couple keep pet chickens
After a spirited debate, the Palatine village council voted to remove three chickens from the backyard of a Palatine couple who had been keeping them as pets.
The fate of the chickens kept by Marshall and Doris Chandler brought several neighbors who live near their house on the 500 block of South Williams Avenue to the meeting.
Doris Chandler said the chickens were sent to her by a friend around 18 months ago to cheer her up when she had a health issue and that she didn't know Palatine had a rule against chickens.
“My health is not the best, and those chickens bring me such joy,” handler said. “I find it appalling to think that I have to sit here and justify my little chickens.”
The chickens were kept in a coop behind the Chandlers' garage, about 6 feet from the bay window of Carl and SueAllyn Kiewert's bedroom.
In a letter to the village, the Kiewerts wrote they like their neighbors, but the sound of the chickens cackling is a problem.
“Chickens do not take weekends off when you may enjoy sleeping in or if you are ill in bed trying to rest,” the couple wrote in the letter.
At the meeting, Carl Kiewert said he was also concerned the chickens might lower their property value.
Chandler said she was willing to move the coop farther back in her yard and even screen it from the Kiewerts' view with landscaping.
“I don't know what to do, I'm willing to bend over backward to appease him except I do not want to get rid of my chickens,” she said. “I like my neighbors, I don't want to make them unhappy, but I don't want them to make me unhappy either.”
Thirty-four residents signed a statement saying they supported allowing the Chandlers to keep the chickens.
Councilman Scott Lamerand said he thought the support from the community was great, but the people whose input matters most are the Kiewerts. “I think the code kind of stands like it is,” Lamerand said. “And unfortunately that's without your chickens.”
Councilman Brad Helms cast the lone vote to let chickens stay.
Councilman Kollin Kozlowski asked the village staff to work with the Chandlers to make sure the chickens were removed and handled in a humane way.