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Atchison commission upholds planning panel and denies rezoning request for 910 Kansas Avenue; directs staff to review chicken rules
Summary
The Atchison City Commission voted to deny a request to rezone 910 Kansas Avenue from B-4 to R-1, backing the Planning Commission's 6–1 recommendation. Commissioners also asked staff to review the city's chicken ordinance to consider allowing backyard chickens where the land is used as a single-family property.
The Atchison City Commission voted to deny a rezoning request for 910 Kansas Avenue and asked staff to review the city's chicken ordinance.
Phil Burke, the city's zoning officer, told the commission the Planning Commission voted 6–1 in July to deny changing the property from B-4 (business) to R-1 (single-family). Burke said the Planning Commission cited concerns about spot zoning and noted that the city’s chicken ordinance as written applies to R-1 zoning only. "The intention of the city commission when they passed that ordinance was clearly to to allow chickens in single family lots," Burke said, explaining the original ordinance linked chickens to single-family zoning because of setback and nuisance considerations.
Commission discussion centered on two points: whether 910 Kansas Avenue historically has had other uses and whether the chicken ordinance should be tied to current land use rather than zoning designation. Commissioners noted the lot has changed uses over time and that many nearby parcels are zoned R-3 or B-4 even though they are used as single-family properties. One commissioner recommended rewording the chicken ordinance to reference the "primary use of the lot being single family" rather than the underlying zoning designation.
Mayor (presiding) moved to approve the Planning Commission's majority vote denying the rezoning request for 910 Kansas Avenue; the motion was seconded by Vice Mayor Wilcox and carried 4–1. The effect of the vote is that the property remains under its current zoning and the applicant’s request to rezone to R-1 was denied. The commission separately instructed staff to return with recommended edits to the chicken ordinance so owners of single-family lots that are zoned otherwise might be able to keep backyard chickens, subject to the ordinance's setback and nuisance requirements.
Why it matters: The decision preserves the current zoning map and reinforces the city’s prior approach to regulating backyard livestock by tying that permission to single-family lots as currently written. Any change to allow chickens on lots used as single-family properties would require an ordinance revision and further staff work and possible future action by the commission.
The commission recorded no additional formal actions on 910 Kansas beyond the denial and the direction to staff to review the chicken ordinance.
