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Prince George planning commission backs allowing backyard hens on smaller residential lots
Summary
After months of public feedback and staff review, the Planning Commission voted to recommend that the Board of Supervisors pursue zoning changes to allow up to six hens on smaller residential lots and to clarify enforcement roles for animal control.
The Prince George County Planning Commission voted on Feb. 27 to adopt a recommendation (referred to in the meeting as “Resolution A”) directing staff to prepare zoning ordinance language that would allow backyard hens on smaller residential lots and address related setbacks and standards.
The recommendation follows nearly a year of discussion and two recent public surveys. Planning staff summarized the background: until 2014 poultry was allowed only in agricultural districts; the 2014 ordinance permitted poultry in residential districts only on lots of two acres or larger. Complaints and sporadic code-enforcement questions in 2020 and again in 2024 prompted the Board of Supervisors to ask the Planning Commission to study whether rules should change.
Staff told commissioners that surveys conducted in 2020 and again in 2024 showed similar levels of public support for allowing chickens on parcels smaller than two acres (roughly 74–75 percent in both surveys). When asked what a…
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