The debate about backyard chickens is back in Cambridge
Posted Aug 24, 2023 12:59:41 PM.
A petition from more than six years ago is once again making the rounds online as some Cambridge residents say they want to keep chickens — in their backyards.
The petition, currently drawing a renewed round of signatures, dates back to March of 2016.
It’s the one that first got the egg rolling toward Cambridge council, three years later, opting not to move forward with an 18-month backyard hen pilot project in 2019.
“So I think the fundamental question is, really, whether it’s appropriate to bring the matter back before council,” said Ross Earnshaw, councillor for Cambridge Ward 4.
Speaking on The Mike Farwell Show on Thursday, Earnshaw said the current council is only one-term removed from that decision, adding his primary concern is whether it’s appropriate to allow the issue to return to council so quickly based on the whims of social media.
“In my view, the answer to that is no,” he said, flatly.
Earnshaw said, as part of that original process, the public was consulted, studies were made, reports submitted, and the decision–close or not–was to not move ahead with a backyard hen pilot project.
“I can see circumstances where it would be appropriate to reopen something if, for example, a great deal of time had passed or if there was some other material change in circumstance that would justify a reconsideration of something that had been decided some time ago by a previous council,” he said. “But this is a very recent decision that was taken with deliberation and care, and after public consultation.”
“So I don’t think it’s appropriate to reopen it.”
Earnshaw, meantime, did also acknowledge he may have a bit of a personal bias against the idea to begin with.
“As to the chickens themselves,” he said. “I grew up on a hobby farm and so I have a great deal of familiarity with chickens.”
“Some of it’s positive but a good deal of it’s negative, having to do with things like cleaning out pens and odoriferous and noisy conditions that would, if it came before me, lead me to consider that it would be inappropriate for residential properties in the city.”
