'Work in progress:' Sea Cliff Board of Trustees is reviewing village chicken ownership rules

How, exactly, Sea Cliff residents are permitted to have chickens on their property could soon become much clearer. Legislation governing chicken ownership in the village is being drafted in an effort to modernize this part of its code.

Part Two, Article One, Section 36 of the village code states that in order to own chickens, a resident must obtain the permission of 75 percent of the adults living within 200 feet of the applicant’s property. It is not defined in the code who qualifies as an adult.

Resident Peter Ruff submitted an application to the village board of trustees on Nov. 10 to keep chickens on his property, at 11 Carpenter Place. The application was denied at the village meeting on Monday because, the board ruled, Ruff did not meet the 75 percent requirement. There are no other open applications for chicken ownership.

In an interview in which she touched on some of the issues with how the regulations are written, Mayor Elena Villafane said that part of the goal of devising a new process for obtaining a chicken permit is to avoid pitting neighbors against one another, a potential risk with the system now in place.

“The current legislation is poorly drafted, inelegant,” Villafane said, “and it creates an unnecessary tension in the neighborhood.”

Village Administrator Bruce Kennedy echoed Villafane’s concerns after Monday’s meeting, saying that the law may have made sense in the 1960s, but is no longer practical.

“Back then, most residents were generational — everybody knew each other,” Kennedy explained. “That’s not the case anymore, so it doesn’t make sense anymore. So if there’s going to be keeping of livestock, what are best practices?”

Villafane emphasized that creating new regulations for owning chickens is a “work in progress.” New legislation would potentially allow residents to apply for a permit to own the animals. Among the parameters being considered are property size, distance from property lines where chickens must be kept, and a requirement that they cannot be housed closer to a neighbor’s house than to the applicant’s, according to Villafane. Other details have yet to be worked out.

According to Villafane, the village board is more inclined to allow residents to own chickens, with proper permits and regulations, than to prohibit ownership. “We are looking to create a user-friendly process,” she said, “for people to have chickens in the appropriate setting.”

Villafane also said that too much regulation can be counterproductive, creating an “unnecessary burden” on the village Building Department, which would have regulatory oversight on the ownership of chickens.

“The Building Department has a lot to do without me adding additional regulatory oversight to (it),” the mayor said.

New regulations can create problems for homeowners as well, she said, and emphasized striking a balance. “We do not want to be in a situation where we are putting neighbor versus neighbor,” Villafane said. “We also do not want to be in a position where we create an overly burdensome regulatory scheme that requires significant oversight and enforcement from the village.”

Even with an updated permit system, there may be issues that arise if residents are allowed to own chickens. The policies for handling those issues, such as potential complaints from neighbors, are expected to be addressed in the new legislation, according to Kennedy.

Municipalities across Nassau County have varying regulations on chicken ownership, with some, like the Village of Garden City, prohibiting it entirely, and others, like the Village of Freeport, allowing it with restrictions. Nassau County does not have countywide regulations governing backyard chicken coops, leaving the matter to individual municipalities.

New York state requires people with chicken coops on their properties to register the enclosure with the municipality in which the property is located. Coops must be registered within 30 days of their construction. Additionally, municipalities are required to submit a list of all residential chicken coops to the New York Farm Bureau, which maintains a database of all registered coops. In the event of a disease outbreak affecting residential chickens, the Farm Bureau can then contact all chicken owners in the database.

The draft of the Sea Cliff’s chicken ownership legislation was expected to be released on the village website later this week.