Cochrane Councillors were impartial when it came to a backyard chicken pilot.
Jennifer Walden, Founder of CLUCK Cochrane, made her way back to council chambers last evening (July 10) with an arsenal of information why Cochrane council should reconsider a pilot program. On February 27, council voted against moving forward with a pilot which would allow for 17 homes to house backyard hens.
Walden is not looking to change the bylaw, but instead use information from an approved pilot to guide the future of backyard hens in Cochrane by testing the waters.
Walden, says she has received great response from chicken supporters in Cochrane but Mayor and council say their inbox is filled more with nays than yays.
Mayor Ivan Brooker, says while personally he isn't against the idea he does want to see way more positive feedback from the Cochrane community before moving forward. "I am curious to hear what people say. When it came out the first time there was lots of strong opinions against it, some strong opinions for it but by a landslide it was more people opposed to it at least that contacted me. I am very interested to see if it will get the same kind of push back."
Councillor Ross Watson suggested a couple of additions to the pilot. "If we went ahead with the project two things would have to be satisfied for me; in order to be one of the people in the pilot they get the consent of their neighbours...the question is how many neighbours? And the other thing because we have a concern with what we call our urban rural interfaces where there might be gateways for predators maybe certain areas have to be identified as high risk and how do we go about doing that? I can see going ahead with the pilot but I would like to have the pilot address those concerns."
Councillor Morgan Nagel who appeared more keen on giving the project thumbs up doesn't want the pilot to become convoluted. While council left their own personal opinions out they still struggled with the lack of public support from the greater community.
Walden went through predator statistics, feedback from neighbouring communities, public opinion, and long term sustainability as part of her presentation. Cochrane Council received the information and directed administration to draft an outline of guidelines and parameters for a potential pilot before year end.
Council would like to hear your opinion on this matter and emails are below:
MaryLou.Davis-Eckmeier@cochrane.ca
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