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Planning committee recommends city adopt farm‑animal ordinance with clarified grandfathering
Summary
Findlay’s Planning & Zoning Committee recommended that City Council adopt a new Chapter 508 to regulate farm animals in the city, keeping 1‑acre and 3‑acre thresholds, removing a 90‑day documentation requirement for grandfathering and clarifying that grandfathering protects existing use (tied to property) with the burden of proof on the owner.
The Findlay City Planning & Zoning Committee recommended that City Council adopt a revised farm‑animal ordinance (Chapter 508) that sets acreage thresholds, defines companion animals and livestock, and clarifies how grandfathering of existing uses will be handled.
Staff summarized an open‑house Q&A with about 20 attendees and several council members and said the draft ordinance was revised after public feedback. One key change removes a provision that would have required owners to provide documentation of prior use within 90 days of passage; staff said that requirement was not appropriate and that grandfathering is a property‑based right that should be documented for clarity but not strictly limited to a 90‑day window.
Staff told the committee that, under typical zoning precedent cited in the discussion, grandfathering protects the use as it exists at the time of adoption and does not protect potential future expansion (for instance, an owner with three horses at adoption could not later claim rights to keep ten horses without additional approvals). Committee members and staff cited case examples and planning practice to make that point and said the burden of proof in challenges rests with the property owner.
The draft ordinance adds two definitions drawing from state codes: a companion animal (pet) as described in the Ohio Revised Code and livestock/farm animal as described in the Ohio Administrative Code; staff gave the example of an indoor pot‑bellied pig that sleeps inside 365 days a year being treated as a companion animal, not livestock subject to the chapter.
On acreage, staff said the committee’s thresholds (1 acre and 3 acres depending on animal size) were chosen after reviewing ordinances from about 67 other communities; some committee members said they would prefer prohibiting farm animals in the city while others accepted the proposal as a middle ground. Staff also explained the ordinance will be placed in the city’s general code (Chapter 508) rather than the zoning chapter and that most enforcement will be complaint‑driven through administrative staff and police as appropriate.
A committee member moved and the committee voted to recommend Council adopt the revised Chapter 508; the recommendation now goes to City Council for readings.
