Adams ZBA Also Requesting Backyard Poultry Bylaw
 The ZBA spoke with the Nyes on Tuesday after neighbors complained about waste runoff on their property. |
Recently, the board approved a special permit allowing Lori Nye to raise chickens in her Enterprise Street back yard.
However, neighbors have since complained that chicken poop is running into their yard and causing property damage.
The Board of Health last week issued a nuisance order claiming the Nyes are not properly removing the manure as was stipulated in their special permit.
On Tuesday, the ZBA expressed frustration with the permit process because the board has few ways to know if the permit's stipulations are being actually adhered. Because of the complaints and the Board of Health's nuisance order, the building inspector asked the ZBA to readdress the permit.
"What we have to do is figure out how we can get some adherence to this special permit you have to continue doing what we were granting you to do. The reason we're back here is because it hasn't gone as planned," ZBA Vice Chairman Peter West told Lori Nye. "We need to have some kind of way to know that the waste is [being removed]."
Nye presented receipts related to waste removal but there was some debate over which materials — such as wood chips, hay and straw — were removed and were required by the permit. Nye said she has been adhering to the permit and stopped "dumping on the hill" when the ZBA issued the permit. The chickens are now being kept inside the pen, she said.
However, she recently denied a request from the building inspector to reinspect the property. Nye said that was not really a denial but rather a request that he wear sterile clothing when coming onto the property.
"I didn't actually refuse David [Pelletier] to come on my property," Nye said, adding that poultry inspectors have told her to limit people's access to her property to protect from diseases such as the avian flu. Nye plans on bringing her chickens to the Adams Agricultural Fair and is taking extra precautions, she said. "If I don't take those measures and I don't know if my birds are safe, then I am the cause for the whole Aggie Fair coming down with the flu or whatever."
Nye wants the inspector to at least wear paper covers on his feet before inspecting the coop. A poultry inspector recently wore a disinfected suit for an inspection, she added.
The board had little evidence because of the lack inspection to demand anything change with the permit. They postponed the discussion until June, so the inspector can take another look at the property wearing the protective gear.
Instead, they switched their attention to writing a bylaw. The ZBA will ask the Board of Selectmen and the Planning board to craft new regulations.
"It's got to be addressed in our zoning law. It's so vague, what we have in the there right now, it's so vague that its got to be rewritten. Something has to be done because there will be more people getting more chickens," Chairman Michael Mach said.
The board discussed limiting the number of chickens on a property to about a dozen or eliminating backyard poultry all together in some sections of town. The are no current bylaws that specifically addresses chickens.
The Board of Health also began looking at typical poultry laws that include setbacks.
Tags: chickens, poultry, ZBA,
