Committee rejects motion to approve ZHO denial of chicken coop setback variation

At the June 16 meeting of the Education County Development Committee, members voted against a motion to approve the Zoning Hearing Officer’s recommendation to deny a variation that would reduce an interior side setback for an existing chicken coop.

Vice Chair Yu asked why the owner sought a reduction from 25 feet to about 16 feet and whether the coop had been built without a permit; a staff member later confirmed the coop was constructed without permits about a year earlier. "There's no hardship, practical difficulty or unique circumstance," the staff told the committee, explaining that the record contained little evidence to support the variation.

The committee discussed precedent. One member recalled a prior variation granted where moving a structure would have encroached on a septic field; committee members said no comparable practical difficulty was shown in this case. Committee members also asked whether the household would need to remove its five chickens if the coop were disallowed; staff said residents may keep up to five chickens but must site them to meet the setback rules or provide an alternative enclosure. "They can keep the chickens," the staff said, "they just have to move the chickens to a place where it's at least 25 feet away from the property." The transcript indicates the five-chicken limit is the applicable allowance.

Committee members and staff also reviewed how the county treats preexisting, unpermitted structures. A staff member addressed as Paul explained that the county uses 1957 as the legal cutoff for grandfathering because of a controlling court decision; structures built after 1957 generally do not automatically grandfather and are handled through the conditional-use process if they have existed on the property for at least five years. The staff described conditional use as a tool that can impose time limits and owner-specific conditions (for example, the pool item discussed earlier carried an 18-month condition in the ZHO recommendation).

After discussion the panel signaled it would not support the motion to accept the Zoning Hearing Officer’s denial recommendation. Vice Chair Yu, Member Colbert, Member Martinez and Member Rosa each recorded "No" when the chair called the roll on the motion; the chair declared the motion failed.

Because the committee declined to approve the ZHO’s recommendation to deny the variation, the transcript records no final ordinance or variation decision at the meeting. The committee did not adopt an alternative motion recorded in the transcript; next procedural steps were not specified during the session.