Home to Roost Helping city folks raise chickens!

At a board of trustees meeting on February 22, 2013, Arlington Heights again rejected backyard hens. Mary Green, Matt Scallon, and a contingent of chicken supporters, including Home to Roost, showed up for the meeting and made a valiant effort, but to no avail.

Mary’s letter follows:

Dear Backyard Chicken Supporters,
Thank you all for your words of encouragement, and a special shout out to those who attended and spoke at tonight’s meeting!

The Arlington Heights Village Board voted to deny both my and Matt’s variance requests.

We were given our (brief) time to speak, but it was clear from the onset that some of the Trustees were offended by the fact that the issue was even being brought up again (Matt went before them in Feb. 2012). Some of them believed that the 7-2 vote at last year’s meeting indicated that the Board was voting against having chickens altogether. Period.
In fact, they hadn’t changed the language of the ordinance and that enabled us to bring our petitions up this time. There was a valiant effort by one Trustee to discuss how to define a “customary” pet, but overall their minds were made up.

I see the experience as successful in that we energized the discussion and had an opportunity to educate people about the benefits and misconceptions of backyard chickens.

Historically, many proposals brought before the Board in the past have been met with strong opposition (including paved roads and a sewer system). A movement like ours won’t go away, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and change will come.

~Mary