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Resident urges council to rescind 1,000-foot coop setback; asks for 15–30-foot rule and privacy-fence option
Summary
A lifelong Smyrna resident asked the council to amend municipal code to remove a 1,000-foot setback for backyard chicken coops and replace it with a more typical 15–30-foot separation and a privacy-fence requirement, saying the current rule effectively prohibits backyard coops.
Timothy Quick, a lifelong Smyrna resident, told the Town Council during public comment that Smyrna’s municipal ordinance allows chickens but that a second provision—he cited it as municipal ordinance 10-102—imposes a 1,000-foot distance requirement between a coop and a house or road that effectively prevents backyard chickens.
"Smyrna does allow chickens. Where they hamstring us and stop us from having chickens in our backyard is the ordinance ten-one hundred and 2, where they put the restriction of a thousand feet," Quick said, adding that national practice typically requires 15 to 30 feet. He asked the council for "a simple administrative amendment to the code, taking the thousand foot restriction out and placing 15 to 30 feet."
Quick referenced a 2017 city poll and criticized the current restriction as disproportionate: "To have a thousand feet from a house or road ... a thousand foot's approximately 3 football fields," he said, adding that Smyrna previously had backyard gardens and chickens. He also suggested a privacy-fence requirement—already used by some neighboring municipalities—to address sight and nuisance concerns, and said proper animal care prevents odor problems.
The council did not take formal action on the request during the meeting; Quick’s remarks were part of the public comment period.
